"I've never seen an update to a book's cover executed so perfectly."

May 14, 2017 6:40 AM

How the redesigned Judy Blume covers avoid nostalgia and embrace universal adolescent angst. [SLVox]
posted by Ziggy500 (30 comments total)

Ok, that's just damn clever. I love it.
posted by Fizz at 6:45 AM on May 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

That "Are You There..." cover is fantastic. Simplified to perfection.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:45 AM on May 14, 2017 [10 favorites]

I must admit that's an inspired cover.
posted by orange swan at 7:17 AM on May 14, 2017

That is indeed a brilliant cover, and the thing that makes it perfect is the bubble indicating a response is coming. So much narrative tension in an image! Is God there? Did she text the wrong number? Will a message ever come through, or will the response bubble just disappear? It's a wonderful cover, but it works just as well as an independent work of art.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:15 AM on May 14, 2017 [19 favorites]

Wow, "inspired" is exactly the word.
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:18 AM on May 14, 2017

I think the iconic illos on these covers are cute and clever. I wish they hadn't used carrotflower for the title font—the illustrations have even line weight and that font doesn't mesh AND it's distracting to me that it's so recognizable. (That doesn't totally apply to the Are You There... cover as that one doesn't have outlines on the art. However, I still find the carrotflower jarring and it needs more space! Why aren't the text bubbles 1/8" wider to give the text some breathing room.)

I also thought it interesting that the editor was the one working with the illustrator rather than the art director. (Or that's what the interview implied.)
posted by (Over) Thinking at 8:20 AM on May 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

Dead on, and perfectly current. That means it'll be dated more quickly, but that might also mean it's destined for nostalgia of its own.
posted by wildblueyonder at 8:49 AM on May 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

That was a great article. Thanks for posting it.
posted by medusa at 9:01 AM on May 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

I didn't understand the "Are you there, God?" cover. I didn't recognize it as an SMS conversation. Wow, my irrelevance is nigh-er than I thought.
posted by d. z. wang at 9:19 AM on May 14, 2017

the bubble will keep bobbing up and down, forever, with no response
posted by numaner at 9:33 AM on May 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

ugh, it's like texting your crush
posted by AFABulous at 9:34 AM on May 14, 2017 [7 favorites]

I didn't recognize it as an SMS conversation. Wow, my irrelevance is nigh-er than I thought.

It only looks that way on iPhones. I never have owned one, but it's been used a lot as a theme in illos (vide, lately captured in London) and I'd worked it out by osmosis before I actually encountered it in the plastic reals. It's by no means universal - although school kids around here do seem to be very heavily iPhone biased (in a group of 30 I worked with, 25 had them, four had Androids and one had a Windows phone. He was quite resolute in that, though.)

But yeah, some lovely cover work here. I was brought up on Puffin Swallows and Amazons editions on the one hand and a huge intake of British 60s SF paperbacks in that wondrous psychedelic-futurist-surreal style (leavened by Chris Foss), and am absolutely drawn to strong use of colour, line and space on covers. One of the things I regret about current online experiences is that there is nowhere with that sort of design nous, no site with good content and a reliably wonderful visual style.
posted by Devonian at 9:47 AM on May 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

How does the "..." work? Does the iphone actually send a notification when you start typing a message even if you don't send it? Please tell me my android phone doesn't do this.
posted by 256 at 11:20 AM on May 14, 2017

So have they updated the book plot so that now Margaret is texting?
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:42 AM on May 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

From the article:

It’s funny, of course, because there are no cell phones in the book, but Judy has also said that if it was written today, Margaret would be a texter!

posted by Lexica at 12:03 PM on May 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

I wonder how relevant the Margaret cover is even today. According to a friend who is more up to date on the technology choices of teenagers than I am, "texting is for olds" and teens use Snapchat and the like. Of course, these are SF Bay area teenagers so they may be more fashion forward than the rest of the country.
posted by tavella at 12:08 PM on May 14, 2017

Snapchat also gives you a little notification when someone starts typing to you, though. FYI to my fellow olds.
posted by saturday_morning at 12:11 PM on May 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Why did they write a piece on three-year-old covers as if they were new? Also, the "Are You There God" cover is nice, but the others seem pretty boring to me.
posted by old_growler at 1:20 PM on May 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Snapchat is absolutely the thing for Scots schoolkids, and I don't doubt that this is the case in general - texting is still in the hands of the telcos and you get either a ration per month or are otherwise charged for it in ways that work out to be far more expensive than the Snapchat impact on your data allowance (which is zero if you're on wifi, anyway). Plus there are all the selfie fun things...

I don't think that matters for the cover design of Margaret. It's still mobile messaging, and being a bit older isn't bad - when you're young, you want to think of yourself as mature for your age. Mostly, though, it's a great design that communicates a very identifiable state of mind with clarity - thirty or forty years ago, it could have used cartoon thought bubbles or speech balloons with only small tweaks, and worked pretty much the same.
posted by Devonian at 1:22 PM on May 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

I strongly dislike all of those redesigned covers, although at least Margaret is a good concept.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 5:06 PM on May 14, 2017

The margaret one is pretty good, for sure, but the others don't strike me as particularly inspired...but I'm not the target audience.

Skype does the "so and so is typing" thing. I like it best when someone is clearly typing and then changing their window focus to other things. It goes from "is replying" to nothing to "is replying" to nothing.

Sometimes is stays on nothing. So lonely.
posted by maxwelton at 5:43 PM on May 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

I liked the little idiot toddler in those Judy Blume books. What was his name? Mustard? Anyway, his wacky antics really tickled my fancy when I was however old I was.
posted by turbid dahlia at 7:48 PM on May 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

That was Fudge!
posted by bookmammal at 7:53 PM on May 14, 2017 [5 favorites]

I used to use Pidgin for messaging, and it had (has?) a plugin that would open a chat window whenever somebody had begun typing a message to you, even if you didn't have a prior conversation going. I'd use that to freak out the message sender by quickly saying "yes?" before they finished typing. I thought it was hilarious at the time but in retrospect it must have been annoying as hell.
posted by rouftop at 10:14 PM on May 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

God: "New phone, who dis?"
posted by metaphorever at 7:54 AM on May 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

The Devil: "You up?"
posted by e1c at 10:04 AM on May 15, 2017

I think the iconic illos on these covers are cute and clever. I wish they hadn't used carrotflower for the title font—the illustrations have even line weight and that font doesn't mesh AND it's distracting to me that

posted by (Over) Thinking at 10:20 AM on May 14 [4 favorites +] [!]

Eponysterical :-)
posted by randomkeystrike at 10:32 AM on May 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

There's a Nirvana Baby-style joke to be made about a grown up Fudge.
posted by jjwiseman at 2:35 PM on May 15, 2017

From Wikipedia: "In the final chapter of the book, Fudge (somehow) eats Peter's turtle, Dribble, whole, killing it. Fudge is hospitalized, and the doctors are able to help Fudge vomit up the turtle's remains."

WHOA WAIT I SURE AS SHIT DON'T REMEMBER THAT
posted by turbid dahlia at 10:40 PM on May 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

WHOA WAIT I SURE AS SHIT DON'T REMEMBER THAT
posted by turbid dahlia at 10:40 PM on May 15 [+] [!]

I do! It was one of the reasons I had a love-hate relationship with the Fudge books. As an older sibling I really empathised with Peter and I never felt that Fudge got the come-uppance he deserved.

I felt so bad for Peter when no one commiserated with him for the loss of his turtle, although (spoiler for a book published yonks ago) if I recall correctly he gets a dog in the end.
posted by Ziggy500 at 5:18 AM on May 16, 2017