Vintage Book Covers







I was exploring the depths of my basement the other day and came across these books. My favorite is the first one, but I think they all have something interesting going on. (I remember the Animal Farm cover from Scott’s post a while back.) The typography of each cover is worth noting — especially the beautiful implementation of the lowercase Carousel on the “Secrets of Health…” cover! The ampersand in particular is pretty amazing. As much as I love Bodoni and Didot, Carousel has a few extra twists that make it more exciting to me.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t live in a design centric city; all the used bookstores were plundered long ago of anything with cool design at work. It is a rare occurrence that I find something worth buying at even the most remote vintage bookshop. Got out here too late!
Apologies for the iPhone photos — it was all I had at the time and I couldn’t pass up the chance to snap some shots. Also worth noting is the price of some of these…when was the last time you paid 25c for a book?

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02/22/10 - 



































August 27th, 2009 at 12:32 am
Very nice:)
Anybody know the font used on “Secrets of health and beauty?”
What a sweet “b” and “a”
looks like sort of a curvy bodoni or normande but cant’s find it…
August 27th, 2009 at 6:43 am
^hmmm.
i would have said didoni, or maybe caslon 224. alex has it though. that italic ‘k’ is so dope.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Not sure if they have Goodwill in the States, but this is where I get all my stuff. Lots of Penguin Classics from various decades.
August 28th, 2009 at 3:40 am
Thanx for the reply!
Seems that it’s Didoni, and Calson 224 is close with more versatility
August 28th, 2009 at 9:43 am
baaz- It’s Carousel, as mentioned in the post. Gorgeous typeface
August 29th, 2009 at 1:37 am
Следите за пульсом блогосферы на Яндекс-Блоги? Оказывается скоро Татьянин день.
August 31st, 2009 at 8:40 am
I think the iphone photos add something to each. I love the blurred letters on the Arthur Miller Book. That was from the photo wasn’t it, not in the actual design?