Priscila Lena Farias / Anna Calvera Marcos da Costa ... - Blucher

The Design of book bovers in Brazil during the sixties through the covers by Marius Lauritzen Bern
enced by the mass media. The American Push Pin Studios was one
of the most influential group in the expansion of this new visual
style. The combined uses of drawing and typography became the
trademark of the studios and also of the generation of contemporary
designers that followed. In Brazil, Eugênio Hirsch - a leading
exponent of book design – heavily influenced the work of book
designers that followed his footsteps with his agressive style and
bold use of typography.
2. Production at the Civilização Brasileira
Like in other Brazilian publishing houses of that period, the Civilização
Brasileira divided book production into sections, with their
parts being created separately. The cover designer created the
cover and spine, while other employees with technical knowledge
of typography were in charge of the body layout, flaps and back
cover. At the time Marius Bern was working at the Civilização Brasileira,
covers were considered the artistic part, and the typesetting
of the body the technical part of production (Escorel 1974).
Production processes also differed as covers were printed in
offset and the body usually in linotype and typography (Mariz
2005). Typefaces used on covers, title pages and back covers did
not always match, thus causing aesthetic incoherence between
the different parts of the final product.
Besides the separate design of the book parts, the high number
of books also affected the production of covers by the Civilização
Brasileira – on average 20 new titles were produced monthly
from 1964 to 1968 (Vieira 1998). To meet demand, Bern had to
create the covers in a very short time. In order to make the cover,
the designer had to have access to the content of the book, which
he could learn from the complete text, summary and extracts, or
through an oral description, wich was a very common practice. He
could also design the cover based only on its title and, in certain
cases, on a copy of the original version so that he could use its
cover as a reference for the Brazilian version. Despite many difficulties,
Ênio Silveira gave designers great freedom to create the
covers, rarely interfering or rejecting a layout.
3. Marius’ Covers
The seven covers selected for this paper are a sample of a total of
230 collected covers, created by the designer. This selection presents
some of the most representative visual solutions adopted
by Marius Bern on his covers, and allows us to draw some conclusions
about same aspects of his work. Bern created designs in
a vast spectrum of styles mixing varied stylistic sources. Some
have received a pictorial treatment while others show high contrast
photographs (frequently incorporated into the graphic design
of the 1960s). The visual technique of contrast can be found
in most covers and was intended for visual impact. The spirit of
the 1960s can be found in the graphic design of that period and,
therefore, it is depicted on Marius Bern’s covers.
Figure 1. Front Cover of Caiu na Vida Civilização Brasileira, 1966 (Photo by
Carina Naufel)
Figure 2. Front Cover of O Homem Contra o Mito. Civilização Brasileira, 1966
(Photo by Carina Naufel)
The cover of Caiu Na Vida (Fell in the Life) (Fig. 1) establishes a
relationship with the Pop Art ʺ through colors, line drawing, and a
sequential construction of three illustrated scenes. The bright and
saturated colors combined with line printing in black spot color
produce contrast in the composition. The illustration of a human
silhouette without any details completed with some filling imperfections
reminds us of the silk screen printing technique. The
empty space - generous in the first frame – shocks as it contains
no textual information, leading the observer’s eyes to the bottom
of the cover where the author’s name and book title have been
written, slightly deslocated from the horizontal axis, providing the
composition with some movement. The photo composition technique
available at that time allowed this kind of intervention in the
typographic composition. The color of the title is the complementary
of the magenta background. A visual reading, similar to that
of comic books, suggests scene by scene action and correlates
with the content of the story that provides the title to the work. The
story is about a character that is ran over several times.
For the O Homem Contra o Mito (Man Against Mith) (Fig. 2) Bern
chose a more abstract approach and gave the image a more pictorial
treatment. The painting gave the cover a hand-made look that
contrasts with the condensed characters. The designer gave the
title an irreverent spin by horizontally rotating the letter “O” and
placing the first character of the title on the opposite direction
from the other characters. With a reduced color palette, he integrated
typographic elements with the image applying the same
color on different elements of the cover: magenta was used for the
sphere and also for the book title, and yellow - in a similar shade
to that of the background - was used for the author’s name and the
publishers’ logo. The weight of the text on the left is compensated
by the mass of the sphere on the right.
For the book Sobre Todas as Coisas (Above All Things) (Fig. 3) by Carlos
Heitor Cony, the colors and ornamented shapes that compose
the cover strongly indicate a dialogue with psychedelia. Areas fully
completed with over saturated red and orange are placed side by
Design Frontiers: Territiories, Concepts, Technologies 517