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"Group think" overrated- Cover Design Conference
28.06.11 | Benedicte Page
Group think is overrated in cover design and publishers should only allow a small number of parties to be involved its decision making, a conference has heard.
Business psychologist Tony Crabbe was speaking at last week's The Bookseller Cover Design Conference. Around 200 delegates heard presentations from the likes of Little, Brown's Duncan Spilling, marketing strategist Damian Horner and Hodder & Stoughton's James Spackman.
Crabbe said greater structure would take the conflict out of cover design meetings and lead to better decision-making. He said the designer, sales director and editor should be the only ones to make the decisions, with other participants only present to offer opinion when asked to do so, Crabbe advised.
"Group think" leads to poor quality decisions which lose "uniqueness", the psychologist said. "Take the emotion out of it, cover design is a strategic thing," he added.
However, Hodder & Stoughton creative director Auriol Bishop advised building trust with authors and agents by involving them at an early stage in what directions the publisher thinks a cover could go, offering options and "buy in".
A full write-up of the conference will feature in this Friday's issue of The Bookseller (1st July).
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Who the hell ever suggested that "Group Think" in design was a good thing?
Non-story.
Typical creative consultant neologizing. I say: if the design stinks everyone should shout out - without hesitation, since most designers like to start their work at the last minute. What shall we call this.. group-stink?
I'd really like to know what in the way of 'groupthink' went on at HC when the decision was taken to change the covers of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books. The artwork of Geoff Hurst, the typography updated to match various contemporary trends, saw the series though multiple editions and was enormously popular with readers. Then, in 2007, it was usurped by a hideous new concept; a mixture of sans-serif and olde worlde fonts on posed model shots that look pure airport fiction. Ghastly, just ghastly.
In 2010 another reprint saw the old artwork restored and the 'new' covers sink without trace. What's interesting about them is that they look as though everyone had a say; somebody wanted photography, someone else wanted to retain the classic style, someone else wanted them to look modern... it all ended up looking a real dog's breakfast.
Who the hell ever suggested that "Group Think" in design was a good thing?
Non-story.
Typical creative consultant neologizing. I say: if the design stinks everyone should shout out - without hesitation, since most designers like to start their work at the last minute. What shall we call this.. group-stink?
I'd really like to know what in the way of 'groupthink' went on at HC when the decision was taken to change the covers of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books. The artwork of Geoff Hurst, the typography updated to match various contemporary trends, saw the series though multiple editions and was enormously popular with readers. Then, in 2007, it was usurped by a hideous new concept; a mixture of sans-serif and olde worlde fonts on posed model shots that look pure airport fiction. Ghastly, just ghastly.
In 2010 another reprint saw the old artwork restored and the 'new' covers sink without trace. What's interesting about them is that they look as though everyone had a say; somebody wanted photography, someone else wanted to retain the classic style, someone else wanted them to look modern... it all ended up looking a real dog's breakfast.