Considering our office looks like the scene of a four bookmobile pileup, it’s funny that this is the first time we’ve featured a book in the Cool Designs of the Week, and we’re featuring two! Whether we’ve been looking in the wrong place or the industry has just gotten lazy (probably a combination of the two), we haven’t seen a lot of breathtaking book design lately. Fortunately that seems to be changing this week. (And for past Cool Designs of the Week, jitterbug on over here.)
‘Saturday Night Live’: The Book Design
Pentagram’s Emily Oberman transfers her talent for crafting SNL identities and opening title sequences to book form with this 500-page Taschen Bible dedicated to the 40-year-old staple of late night. The sumptuous art and dynamic photography alone would be enough to make this a Cool Design, but the way this tome is structured really puts it over the top. This from FastCoDesign:
“With a boxy cover designed to evoke a rock-and-roll album cover, Saturday Night Live: The Book is roughly divided into three parts. The first part of the book structures itself as a weekly calendar, emulating SNL’s own Monday through Saturday production schedule. “We had this idea that the book should be built around this idea of the work week, so that each day is done as a separate chapter,” Oberman says.”
For those who’ve waded through a sea of crummily-designed SNL books over the years, this one very nearly makes it all worth while.
Geomanist Booklet Design
Three booklets slide snuggly into a foil-stamped slipcase to give you an “inspirational” introduction to the typeface Geomanist, whose leitmotif is “geometry and rhythm.” Inside the booklets, minimalist representations of several noteworthy songs…but really it’s all about the covers and the slipcase here. Just gorgeous…and we hated geometry in school!
Sweetwater Social Club Box Design
Considering how popular alcohol is these days, we’re constantly amazed by how alluring many find the trappings of the bootleg ‘n speakeasy days. (Our most popular Gallery piece remains this little nod to the bathtub gin brigade.) Yet alluring those times are, particularly in this limited edition box of Sweetwater Social Club’s Bootleg Bonbons. According to The Dieline, “The box contains a secret prohibition-style drawer revealing the four products in the range, each containing a spirit razing elixir of liquid fantasticality that’s out of this world and a membership key to the Sweetwater Social Club website.” Bottoms up, lushes!
