Listen Up Philip (2014) fictional book covers
Ike Zimmerman’s Some People Are Decent, all set in ITC Bernase Roman.
Fictional book covers designed by Teddy Blanks (CHIPS) for Listen Up Philip, a movie that refers to the late Philip Roth, who repeatedly published with pseudonyms during his career. See also this post about the movie poster and David Haglund’s feature for Slate, and make sure to head over to the CHIPS website to watch some movie excerpts (with a lot more book covers) in their case story.
Listen Up Philip is a dark comedy about a young writer named Philip (Jason Schwartzman), his photographer girlfriend Ashley (Elisabeth Moss) and Ike Zimmerman (Jonathan Pryce), the respected older author who becomes his mentor. CHIPS worked closely with director Alex Ross Perry to design believable (and subtly satirical) book covers not only for Philip’s relatively recent releases, but for Zimmerman’s entire back catalog.
The style of each book conforms to design trends and tropes of the era it was supposed to have been published, using typefaces that would have been widely available at the time. The covers feature prominently in several key scenes.
–– CHIPS
Airbrushed lettering and Futura on Ike Zimmerman’s Audit. Blanks: “Audit is a direct rip-off of the first edition cover of Martin Amis’s Money, which I love.”
Madness & Women, set in Pistilli Roman (or Didoni or Eloquent?)
Tightly spaced caps from Letraset’s Compacta Light are used for The Cinch — A Very Easy Novel and The Shrug — A Very Passive Novel (below).
Blanks: “The Cinch and The Shrug are both attempts at Raymond Chandler-esque detective novels featuring the same private eye character. I loved the idea that Zimmerman, for all his literary clout, harbored a secret desire to write popular genre fiction, but couldn’t quite cut it because he was too pretentious or whatever. I also loved the idea that they would have the same exact cover, as if the publisher had decided to market them like a Sue Grafton series.”
Ike Zimmerman’s A Hero’s Home, featuring Futura caps with the Os substituted by orbs. Probably inspired by this cover for First Flights to the Moon (1970)?
Necessity Never Rest, in 1970s classic ITC Korinna, with period-typical tight letter- and linespacing.
Details from Madness & Women and Hoffman’s Ghost, Color Wheel Books hardcover edition, in Bauer Bodoni Black Condensed.
Ike Zimmerman for CWB Paperbacks, referencing Penguin Modern Classics? Text set in New Century Schoolbook.
Ashley Kane reading another, newer edition of Madness & Women, with a cover in a yet unidentified typeface.
The jacket for Ample Profanity uses all-caps Helvetica Bold.
Blanks: “I, Zimmerman apes the cover of Roth’s autobiography, The Facts, which is designed by Milton Glaser, though I didn’t get the font quite right.” It uses (compressed) ITC Cheltenham.
Blanks: “A Woman’s Point of View is from 1988, which is right around the time everyone was switching to digital type, and for whatever reason, there’s a style of cover from around then that is self-consciously “classic”—small type centered on the page, an evocative vintage illustration, muddy, muted colors.”
Too Much Everything, in a light italic cut from Archer.
Blanks: “Bad Eating is Zimmerman’s most recent novel, from 2008, and I was going for a bright colors, big sans-serif type [Interstate Bold], extremely cropped photo, Chip Kidd-ish kind of thing, or almost a slight nod to a Jonathan Franzen cover.”
Philip Lewis Friedman’s Join The Street Parade, in outlined Gill Sans caps.
This cover for Obidant is set in caps from Knockout (probably the No. 47 weight). Blanks: “… the cover for Philip’s new book, Obidant, with its giant type in the clouds, was absolutely meant as a reference to Infinite Jest.”
Philip Lewis Friedman’s Obidant, a novel published with six different covers that look more like non-fiction. From top left to bottom right: Bembo, a bold condensed Bodoni, Futura Maxi, Caslon 224 (with its compressed f), ITC Franklin Gothic ExtraCompressed, and Bodoni Egyptian.
From the end titles: When the Chips Are Down. Collected stories by Ike Zimmerman, in Palisade Graphic (or Fast Freddy NF?).The title was chosen in reference to Blanks’ design studio CHIPS. Credits in Cabernet.
From the end titles: Josh Fawn’s The Exploding Head Trick, 1990s. Cover in Cholla Sans.
From the end titles: Yvette Dussart, The First Anarchist, set in Poetica.
From the end titles: Philip Lewis Friedman, Join The Street Parade. The font is Blender.
A Daughter’s Point of View by Melanie Zimmerman. Cover in Bembo.
Ashley Kane’s photo book Liberty. Cover set in Univers Bold.
