Jackets Required: The Learners

By Fwis -- Publishers Weekly, 2/14/2008 11:00:00 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: The Learners
Publisher: Scribner
Author: Chip Kidd

A sequel to book designer Kidd’s first novel, The Learners follows recent graduate Happy as he lands his first job. Happy unwittingly volunteers for the now infamous Obedience to Authority experiments at Yale, after designing an ad for the program. Our young protagonist is assigned to be ‘The Teacher’ and is ordered to punish ‘The Learner’ with near-lethal electrical shocks; new heights to poor Happy’s psychological torture. The cover itself is a perfect use of Charles Burns’ illustration, and the lettering is by another Kidd favorite, Chris Ware. The illustrated face is echoed both by the placement of the author’s name, and the howling circular subtitle. The cover lifts away reveal a voltage meter instead of a mouth however, and the illustration on the back shows the subject's eyes closed. While there is a subtle concept to the cover; Kidd's zany and sideways thinking takes place within. A signature cover, perfectly encompassing the designer's own words.