Book Covers and Movie Posters
Gordon Parks was a photographer and also an accomplished writer and filmmaker. Let’s look at some of the graphic material that was created for his work.
Go to
https://www.gordonparksfoundation.org/gordon-parks/writing
- Select one of the book covers (these were designed at different times, different languages and by different publishing houses).
- Then comment in terms of typography:
- The use of typography within the varied classifications
(Serif, Sans Serif, Scripts, etc) - Notice any use of variations (styles) of the typeface in terms of weight, width, posture.
- How is the main title aligned (FL, C, FR)?
- Is the leading (line height) loose or tight or comfortable?
- Is the tracking (word space) loose or tight or comfortable?
- The use of typography within the varied classifications
- Write your response in the comments section below.
- You can also view posters for his films here:
https://www.gordonparksfoundation.org/gordon-parks/film
Other Resources
About the life and work of Gordon Parks
gordonparksfoundation.org
I chose the book cover for “To Smile in Autumn” the author used a mix of transitional, sans serif and display font for the cover. The fonts were a blend of bold and book font, the arrangement on the cover was cohesive and easy to digest with the title having the heaviest weight. Main title is center aligned. the line height is comfortable and word spacing is leaning tight but still very comfortable to read.
This is a serif font, a little decorative, and I would say Old Style Serif. The width is wide and the posture is normal. The text appears to be centered based on the word autumn. There’s definitely some tracking and leading the baselines are very close and even the letters appear almost to be touching
The novel, Shannon, a nice title cover. All of the text is a serif, it seems to be a transitional font. The tittle and the name of the author is in a bold text while the word “a novel” has regular weight. The text “a novel” is centered aligned but the “Gordon Parks” is aligned flushed right. The leading of the text is tight and the tracking of the text is also tight.
Gordon Parks created a novel called, ” The Learning Tree” he uses a sans serif that is in a very low to almost no contrast typeface. Parks centered the alignment of the learning tree, and it looks like the words are growing up which i think is clever to reference the tree aspect. In addition, Parks uses a extended type to create the growing tree reference. The weight is bold sans serif, which brings you back to school and textbooks, which nods to the ‘learning’ part of the title for his book. The leading and tracking is tight and well put together to show that the book is serious and knowledgeable.
https://img.artlogic.net/w_1800,h_1800,c_limit/exhibit-e/604ff958bec27e4e7f684922/9076539f4c056c45ed05d2ea5fe9bbb6.jpeg
The cover I chose is “The Tree of Knowledge”. I chose it because the use of text attracts the reader’s attention due to its bright colors and its use of serif typography, but it is noteworthy that the letters have a different scale between letters and how tight the lines are between each other. The text is centered, and the kerning between the letters is very tight.
I choose “a choice of weapons” . I was drawn to it because of the bold black lettering surrounded by a wall of red text. It looks like he used basic Ariel font, justified, it’s very tight in both leading and tracking. He knew what he was doing with this and I was mildly impressed, He didn’t use any photos or fancy fonts. I can only guess that he didn’t want the reader to be impacted by anything but the words and to think about that. And you do whether you read it or not it sticks to you a bit.