Penguin Brief - Research

Book: A Short History of Nearly Everything

By: Bill Bryson
'One of the world's most beloved writers'

Published: 2003

Success:
- Best selling
- The book received generally favourable reviews, with reviewers citing the book as informative, well-written, and highly entertaining. 
- won Aventis Prize for best general science book
- won EU Descartes Prize for science communication
- shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize

Author's intentions: 
Bryson wrote this book because he was dissatisfied with his own scientific knowledge. He writes that science was a distant, unexplained subject at school. Textbooks and teachers alike did not ignite the passion for knowledge in him, mainly because they never delved in the whys, hows, and whens. Bryson wrote this book in 'layman's terms' in order to make science accessible. 

Target audience:
-Educated but not necessarily expert in scientific fields
-Mature - over 25
-Male & female
-Comfortable income - buying books like this is not high priority to those on lower income unless they have a specific interest in it.

Genre: 'Pop-science' - scientific books for the everyday reader. Consumable to those who are not experts in those fields. See also - pop-sociology, pop-economics, pop-history

Tone: Witty, anecdotal, informal, humorous
'His oft-remarked joie-de-vivre is underpinned by the knowledge that life doesn't last all that long.'
"Bryson uses satire, humour, irony and sarcasm to generate a pace and lucid flow within his writing, and for the reader this can be thoroughly captivating and entertaining. Immediately as the book opens, Bryson establishes an informal and incredibly comic register."

Existing Covers:



This is so horrific that it's almost brilliant, however most people don't share my ironic love of bad design and to most readers this cover probably comes off as looking like a dated school text book. The designer has taken too many concepts from the book - the typography a reference to the playful writing style and the illustration is representative of the content: history of the earth, physics and human history. Also - is the man, who is possibly in reference to the legend of Atlas, seems to be crouching on the moon which adds further confusion.
It's overly complex, with multiple aspects to both the image and the typography, leaving the eye unsure where to focus. The book aims to simplify science for the average consumer, so the cover should represent this and this cover isn't simple. The illustration style is reminiscent of vintage sci-fi novels which, at a glance, is misleading to the viewer.




I appreciate the simplicity of this cover, however it looks boring. I certainly wouldn't be compelled to pick this up in a shop. I appreciate that the designer was trying to be clever with the asterisk element, however it's intention isn't clear. (Or maybe I'm stupid idk). The typeface used looks uptight and stiff, the wide kerning adds to this effect.



This cover is slightly more conceptual. The book talks about the scientific circumstances which lead to the creation of the universe and our Earth, and this cover has appropriated Meccano/ Ikea type instructions as a pun on the creation of the universe. This 'joke' hints at what is contained within the book - technical description presented with humour.

I think that the bisecting of the cover by colour is unnecessary and the typefaces again are boring and stiff. In my opinion, this cover would be better being all one cover with minimal typography and the image being the focal point.

Note every published cover has an image of the Earth - I will explore if there is a way to make this original and contemporary however I imagine I will not end up incorporating it into my final design as it's over-done.



This is a conceptual design from Behance. The board game style grid is a chronological representation of the history of the universe, with key events being represented by vector illustrations. This cover looks very juvenile and falsely gives the impression that this is a children's/ young adult book. This is misleading.

Similar titles:

Another best seller, this title follows a similar narrative to Bryson's work but focuses more on the sociological and anthropological aspects of history. Harari's writing style, whilst being accessible, is more serious. This is represented in the cover through it's balanced hierarchy and typeface.

The hierarchy is employed in order to fit the large amount of type onto the cover without it feeling overcrowded. The typeface chosen could be described as a rounded serif/ Roman style. It is serious but not harsh - conveying that whilst this is a science book, it is still accessible. The use of a human finger print as the tittle on the 'I' is a clear nod to the content of the book which the intended audience will understand.



This cover is beautiful in it's simplicity. The image is abstract but still hints at the scientific content of the book - visually, it could be representative of a black hole, the sun, a planet etc... The use of colour is striking without being garish. The cover is understated and respectful in its presentation of Hawking's work.



The lines used on the cover are in reference to the common way of drawing family trees. This, combined with the title, is an obvious reference to what the book is about. The combination of typography and diagram is clever, it clearly conveys the message and looks minimalist and modern. I'm unsure of the intention behind the rainbow colouring of the lines, however after imagining them in black, I agree with the use of colour in order to separate them from the text and keep it easily legible.

Contemporary book cover design - non-fiction:

The designer Greg Heinemann said the cover design was “inspired by the posters used in the American civil rights movement of the 1960s, which featured black text in capital letters on white backgrounds”

This is a very bold use of typography. The black and white links to the racial issues on which the book focuses.

The cover utilises negative space as it's main design principle.

This cover design uses a single item to indicate the content. The burberry cap became a symbol of the 'chav' stereotype of working class people. It is a recognisable to most British people in a cultural context. The red is a bit overbearing although it could be argued that it represents the 'angry' tone of the book.

The use of contrasting colours and roughly separated into thirds - balancing the cover

reference to Saul Bass's classic film posters in the cut out style and pointing hands.

Jaunty angles refers to humorous yet anxiously sarcastic writing style

Other titles by Bryson:

-humour nostalgia 'british' humour gentle mocking

Market research - Waterstones:

Waterstones is a leading UK book shop. I visited the Leeds branch, which has 3 floors, to pick up a copy of 'A Short History of Nearly Everything'. Whilst there I looked at other titles in the 'popular science' category to analyse competition and seek inspiration.

The designer used the same colours associated with the 'never mind the bollocks' album by the sex pistols, a punk band known for bad behaviour including swearing. In writing, swear words are often censored by replacing the middle characters with a mixture of random punctuation, e.g  'f%&'!@g hell'. The designer has applied this to the title by replacing some of the vowels with punctuation. The typeface is bold and assertive, setting the tone for the book.



This is a literal approach to typography - the designer re-sizes each letter of the word 'scale', thus giving them different scales. The typeface, again, is all caps, tall and bold, giving the cover assertiveness.



This cover uses the method of 'hijacking an object' by packaging the brick, in this sense a metaphor for housing, as a product and including the type on the packaging. This method is clever as it presents familiar concepts to viewers but in a different context.

There were also some vintage Penguin books in the shop.



The traditional penguin fictions are all orange and mostly follow the same template. The green ones are the non-fictions.