Jackets Required: Against the Machine

By Fwis -- Publishers Weekly, 1/8/2008 7:30:00 AM

This is the latest installment in a weekly column by Fwis, a graphic design group that blogs on book jacket design. The Fwis designers judge a recent book by its cover each week on PublishersWeekly.com.

Title: Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob

Designer: Emily Mahon

Author: Lee Siegel

Publisher: Spiegel & Grau

While we can only aspire to be as highly regarded critics as Mr. Siegel, we have to wonder at what point he lost creative control over this homage to the Necronomicon of Evil Dead. While the concept is clear—an ancient (and thus complacent?) tome is preferred to the reactive and uncontrollable wires of the Internet in the background—we’re making an early bet that this cover will remain the weirdest through 2008. With Siegel’s reputation as an acid-tongued, brilliant analyst of contemporary culture, you’d hope that his book’s jacket design would either actively promote that reputation or subtly understate it as a form of contrast. Instead, we have a limp attempt at culture contrast; the warm inviting character of an old book and the cold, unfeeling nature of the Web. At the risk of being called design fascists, we don’t think this book jacket meets the standards of the state—or any standards, for that matter.