Judging a Book by its Cover

I've spent the afternoon thinking about the question Alan posed on the class blogspot about how "forms effect meaning". I'm interested in the mechanics of how that happens, particularly in the ways different forms of a book can effect readership. How can the form of a book impact your decision to pick it up and read it? Certainly there are lots of things to consider before committing to a book; for me I often consider font size, the length of the novel, reviews, etc. And I'm ashamed to admit, sometimes the cover has impacted my decision to bring the book up to the cash register.

This question about form and meaning reminded me of a TEDTalks given in 2012 by Chip Kidd. Kidd is a graphic designer for Knopf, which is an imprint of Random House. He's had a very successful career designing - among other things - book covers. The talk he gave is one of the Smart Laughs in the TEDTalks series. It is called "Designing Books is No Laughing Matter. Ok, It Is".

Kidd is very adamant that the book cover plays an integral role publishing and readership. The cover likely offers the first impression readers have with the book. Despite the cliche, people do judge books by their cover. So the idea is to design a cover that sparks intrigue in the consumer. But Kidd's talk focuses more on the philosophical; to design the cover of a book, he says, "My job is to ask this question: What do stories look like?" In considering this question, the book designer's role "is one of translator and interpreter". Ultimately, the cover becomes the face of the book. His talk is 17 minutes, but it goes through quite a few examples of how the form of the cover impacts society and sometimes even become a cultural phenomenon.
The cover of David Sedaris' "Naked" was designed by Kid. It is a book about Sedaris' trip to a nudist colony. And it deals, among other things, with the insecurities of the naked body. This is the cover of the hardcover edition:

This is the jacket cover (left) and hard cover, after you remove the jacket (right).

Kidd said it was "an excuse to design a book that you could literally take the pants off". I think, as a first impression, this dichotomy of images gives you an idea that this story is going to be about more than just being naked. Kidd says, you take off the cover - take off the pants - and "you don't get what you expect, you get something much deeper". I think we derive meaning from the cover, consciously or subconsciously.

As an aside, Kidd says that Sedaris loved the designed because at book signings he could do this:

As a form, I think book covers have an impact on readership and what they read. Personally, I like the cover of this book. It was eye-catching the first time I stumbled across it in a bookstore.

In his talk Kidd argues the physicality of the book is culturally important. He offers that this kind of cover, and inferences you can glean from it, would be lost in an e-book. He says that perhaps you lose something with a Kindle: “tradition, a sensual experience, the comfort of thingy-ness, [and] a little bit of humanity".  You also lose the smell of the book, “the pungent ink and the deckled edges of the pages”.

He concludes that smelling an iPad will get you nowhere.