Philip Kindred Dick was many things: brilliant, philosophical, often paranoid, prescient, frequently (very frequently) misogynistic, at times quite weird. One thing he was never, even once, was boring. Which is why the decidedly boring design for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s release of Dick’s novels, just over a decade ago, was so jarring to his fans.
But wait!
Boring though they may be, these covers are not, contrary to years of internet potshots, bad design. They are, in fact, a case study in what design actually does, and why you have to look below the surface to judge.
Let’s Back Up a Bit
Before we dive into the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (since renamed to Mariner Books) editions, let’s take a look at what came before them.
Phillip K. Dick (or PKD as fans usually refer to him), is one of the most well-known authors of the 20th century. Thanks to the many (many, many) film and television adaptations of his work, he is arguably the most famous sci-fi author amongst people who don’t read much sci-fi (more on that in a bit).
Even when films aren’t direct adaptations. Dick’s influence is widely felt and frequently commented upon. Basically no writer this side of Stephen King or William Shakespeare has had more impact on the silver screen as PKD. I’m including actual screenwriters in that list.
Dick wrote 44 novels (and more than 120 short stories) before he died of a stroke in 1982. His writing has been in print for 72 years, going back to his first short story, “Roog.” Much of his early writing was published as cheap paperback editions by low brow genre publishers like Ace Books, who would frequently slap two novels together in tête-bêche binding.
All of this is to say there’ve been lots of editions of PKD novels and short story collections before Houghton Mifflin Harcourt snagged most of the rights back in 2010.
What Do You Do With Philip K. Dick?
That is where the editors of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt found themselves in the waning days of Barack Obama’s first term in the White House. They had the rights to publish a slew of titles from a prolific, well-known author. Of course, the downside to a well-known, prolific author is their books have already been widely disseminated.
What you need, if you’re a big publishing company, is to expand the market. Tap into younger readers, sure, but also snag others who are perhaps only vaguely aware of the author. But, did I mention that PKD’s writing is profoundly weird?
Dick aspired to mainstream literary success. He was hailed as a genius in the sci-fi community; not so much amongst the general public. While he was building a name for himself in 50s and early 60s, he tried his hand at more conventional novels. By 1963, his literary agency essentially gave up trying to sell them. Only one was ever published in his lifetime.
Because, you know… weird.
Let’s Go in a Different Direction
I do not envy the team at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt the challenge they faced. They certainly could’ve leaned into the existing PKD fanbase and sci-fi aficionados, giving up on more mainstream readers.
Their goal, however, is to sell books. Existing fans are more likely to already own these books. And oh my, what books they were. Look at some of these earlier releases.
I’m still not clear what was happening with that Man in the High Castle cover.
Say what you will about those cheap old paperbacks. Their cover art was distinctive and served to heighten their mind-bending stories. Over the years, that art has become collectible in its own right.
Tamp Down the Weird, Ramp Up the Boring
Enter Christopher Moisan, designer of book jackets, presently Creative Director at Algonquin Books, and once upon a time, about a dozen years ago, the man assigned to design new covers for just about every PKD book.
This man is a great designer folks. Take a look at his Walter Benjamin covers, which are typographical delights. In 2018, his illustration and not even close to boring design work for Yara Rodrigues Fowler’s Stubborn Archivist cover was a thing to behold. His geometric designs for a series of José Saramago’s novels cleverly tie multiple books together with cohesive type, shapes, and pattern.
He had the exciting and arguably unenviable task of essentially rebranding Philip K. Dick. Much as he would do for Saramago a few years later, he had to help sell not just one book, but multiples of them. It was a similar design brief as the one he faced for Anya Seton’s paperback releases, and he took a very similar approach in both cases:
Now, I want to be super clear about this. Are these the most visually arresting book covers you’ll ever see? Of course they aren’t. It is perfectly fair to call them aesthetically boring, especially when you compare them to the trippy dippy illustrations that came before.
Take The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, a novel teeming with visual iconography to play with, much of which found its way onto the iconic DAW Books edition cover.
Or take the more well-known A Scanner Darkly. The DAW Books edition for that was decidedly of its era, reeking of counter-culture and psychedelia without ever leaning on those subjects’ typical motifs. That is why it holds up so well, decades after it was first published for a suggested retail price of $2.50.
By comparison, Moisan’s designs are a bit dull. Speaking just in terms of aesthetics, they easily qualify as some of the more austere visuals you’ll come across at your local Barnes & Noble. But so what?
Not everything, not even the wild imaginings of Philip K. Dick, has to be visually arresting to be good. As it has been said, “What even is good?”
Boring Design ≠ Bad Design
So while plenty of people can, and have, criticized the modern PKD covers, I am not one of them. Call it boring design if you want, but don’t call it bad design. At the risk of employing even more cliches, opinions are like assholes. Your mileage may vary. Etcetera, etcetera.
But design is different from pure art. Design utilizes art, or at least techniques that laypeople would identify as artistic. Design must do more than is required of art, however. It must achieve some functional purpose, solve some real problem.
“Great design is part science, part process, and part a practical set of solutions with a dash of aesthetics thrown in. Going beyond the surface, a designer inevitably discovers that great design is more about delivering solutions to problems.”
Miklos Philips, UX and Product Designer
Or as Massimo Vignelli famously, and succinctly, said, “Design is not art. Design is utilitarian, art is not.”
Because design utilizes aesthetics, it remains a somewhat subjective topic. Laypeople often reduce design to those aesthetic qualities, but that’s absolutely the wrong way to look at it. Design should be judged on whether, and how elegantly, it serves its utility.
What is the utility of a book cover? That’s simple: sell books.
Understood the Assignment
I confess I have no inside knowledge here. I’ve never seen the sales figures from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. What the original design brief was, the instructions Moisan was given all those years ago, I can’t say.
What I imagine it was goes something like this:
“Hi Mr. Book Designer. We are about to publish a slew of titles from the incomparable, deeply weird Philip K. Dick. In order to sell the most books, we have a bunch of market research saying we need to present these books more as literary classics.
“We think they should look less like out-there science-fiction. Yes, we know they are out-there science-fiction, but let the reader figure that out after they’ve paid for the book.”
Remember, the publisher didn’t need to sell one book here. They had secured rights for dozens of books, and they needed to market all of them. Book covers are one of the most powerful pieces of that marketing.
Ultimately, their fundamental purpose is one thing: get that book from the shelf at Barnes & Noble to the cash register at Barnes & Noble. Everything after that? It’s gravy.
A Penguin and Some Poems
In this case, the boring design work is actually not that boring. Just look closer. Yes, it was clearly meant to look less striking than earlier PKD book jackets, but I have no doubt. The simpler backgrounds are by design.
Simple is hard to pull off, let’s not forget. Here, their simplicity and grid-based repetition is the whole point. Every time you see one of these covers in a bookstore, you’ll be reminded of every other one. That’s priceless advertising ubiquity.
Take another look at the actual details in these designs. Moisan is pulling from a rich history. Collectors of Penguin’s classic paperbacks may recognize the similarities between Moisan’s designs, both for PKD and Anya Seton, and Stephen Russ’ designs for poetry collections from the 1960s.
Design is Made of Details
Penguin is, of course, a go to inspiration for book cover designers who need to build cohesion across a series of titles. With its grid systems and stringent brand discipline, Penguin Books became perhaps the most recognizable literary brand ever. Names like Germano Facetti and Romek Marber (he of the eponymous grid) have become legendary for their work at Penguin.
As a result, plenty of designers have gone back to those iconic covers over the years. Moisan isn’t doing anything particular novel, but he deserves credit for subtly tweaking the details in his execution.
Notice the geometric lines that fluctuate around the titles from one PKD book cover to the next. The typography is doing some work too. Moisan juxtaposes pure sans-serif and a typewriter-esque, but vaguely futuristic, type. It evokes both the mid-20th century period when these novels were written and the cold, dystopian futures they imagined.
There’s more. Notice how he shifts his own grid a bit asymmetrically? That joins with the abstract nature of the backgrounds to make these covers feel just a bit off, just a little alien. Any critic who claims these covers aren’t reflective of the underlying writing isn’t paying attention.
And yes, these do look more like literary classics. They are literary classics!
Each one looks like a book a mainstream reader – perhaps open to genre fiction, but not steeped in it – might pick up. I’m willing to bet Houghton Mifflin Harcourt sold quite a few of these PKD paperbacks. I bet Mariner Books still is.
That good (yes good), boring design work by Christopher Moisan has a lot to do with that.