[HN Gopher] The Mystery of the Dune Font
___________________________________________________________________
The Mystery of the Dune Font
Author : edent
Score : 279 points
Date : 2023-01-27 09:01 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fontsinuse.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (fontsinuse.com)
| prepend wrote:
| > Strangely enough, the name of this typeface is barely known
| even among die-hard fans.
|
| This doesn't seem strange to me at all. I'm a fan of many books
| and I don't know the name of any of the typefaces. I think it's
| funny that this author links fandom for fonts to fandom for Dune
| and thinks people interested in Dune are also interested in
| typefaces.
|
| I like this article and was curious about the distinctive "dune
| font." But not enough to Google it in the past 40 years.
| narag wrote:
| Maybe he meant _typography_ die-hard fans.
| prepend wrote:
| Perhaps. The context made me think it was Dune fans.
|
| I would think most typography fans wouldn't even be aware of
| Dune.
| narag wrote:
| To be honest, the same sentence caught my eye. I can
| imagine there are some fans of both Dune and Typography.
| But it's more probable that it's due to some effect I've
| been observing for a while. Not sure if it has a name, all
| these pieces of Internet wisdom have a name, like "Gell-Man
| Amnesia", "Godwin's Law"... maybe I could call it narag's
| effect?
|
| I mean that any YouTube channel or Instagram account, that
| has some niche topic as focus, tend to greatly exagerate
| what is considered a normal engagement with such topic.
|
| As an example, most persons own one watch and one perfume,
| if any. If you want to buy a new wristwatch or perfume and
| do your little research, you'll find reviewers that own
| hundreds of perfumes or dozens of watches, some of them
| ridiculously expensive. Why? You can create a channel that
| helps the viewers to choose their one and only cheap
| purchase, but good luck monetizing that. You need recurring
| visitors, to improve your watching times. Brand deals also
| require you are able to send whales to the vendors.
|
| The noble art of Typography and a blog seem a little too
| sober of a setup to fit that description, but who knows,
| I'm sure there are pros very passionate about typesetting.
|
| https://www.quotes.net/mquote/907087
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| That Dune Calendar from 1978 would work for this year too. Wonder
| if there's high quality scans available?
|
| Edit: Reasonable scan here:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/bh17j5/the_dune_calen...
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| Wow, the artwork is just beautiful. I wish this could get a re-
| release now that the new movies are introducing Dune to a new
| audience.
| ChickenNugger wrote:
| [dead]
| pklausler wrote:
| I always enjoy seeing the "Dune" font in unexpected places, such
| as the logo of the Washington Square Mall in the western burbs of
| Portland (OR), and wonder whether there's a Herbert fan somewhere
| with a sense of accomplishment for having used it.
| enriquto wrote:
| None of these covers shows "the" Dune font, for me. The first
| edition of Dune had a very stylized calligraphy that looked like
| arabic. I remember it vividly since my dad had this book in the
| living room, among others; and when I was learning to read, this
| was the only cover that I couldn't read at all. (It was a
| translation, but with the same cover.)
|
| These letters are shown on the wikipedia page about the novel:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_%28novel%29
|
| EDIT: The covers of some modern french translations are also
| incredible. Just the four letters D U N E, which are exactly the
| same shape but rotated 90 degrees. It's an incredibly simple and
| effective design.
| ernesth wrote:
| > EDIT: The covers of some modern french translations are also
| incredible. Just the four letters D U N E, which are exactly
| the same shape but rotated 90 degrees. It's an incredibly
| simple and effective design.
|
| Indeed, the _Robert Laffont_ 2020 edition looks great:
| https://www.noosfere.org/livres/EditionsLivre.asp?numitem=13...
| smithza wrote:
| I was wondering where I got that copy. My old one had its
| binding failed and I purchased this Robert Laffont special
| edition (an email promo maybe?). Thanks for pointing it out
| for me.
| wazoox wrote:
| Yes the metal cover with forms changing with the light are
| great, look almost like holograms, extremely SciFi! The
| static pictures can't make them justice.
| n1b0m wrote:
| That makes sense given Herbert borrowed heavily from Middle
| Eastern, Islamic mythology
| Semaphor wrote:
| > Just the four letters D U N E, which are exactly the same
| shape but rotated 90 degrees. It's an incredibly simple and
| effective design.
|
| For those interested: https://m.media-
| amazon.com/images/P/B08HPFCMLS.01._SCLZZZZZZ...
| MalcolmDwyer wrote:
| Some Unicode variants:
|
| to te ti ta
|
| to te ti ttha
|
| [?] [?] [?] [?]
|
| Edit to add one more...
|
| [?] [?] [?] [?]
| edaemon wrote:
| I imagine most people are aware but the second variant you
| have there is essentially what was used for the most recent
| movie:
| http://www.impawards.com/2021/posters/dune_ver16_xlg.jpg
| djur wrote:
| There were a lot of "DUNC" jokes about the poster, like
| that the main character was named "Dunc". (Real Dune
| heads may have some "well, actually" thoughts about
| that.)
| yellowapple wrote:
| I reckon Dune fans find all sorts of deeper meaning in
| the hit B-52s song "Private Idaho".
| radiowave wrote:
| Ah, as if raked into the sand. Brilliant.
| Zecc wrote:
| See also: Sun Microsystems' logo
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sun-Logo.svg
| danparsonson wrote:
| Gosh I've seen that so many times before and yet never
| really _looked_ at it until now.
| Cockbrand wrote:
| When I went to my first computer fair as a teenager, I saw
| the Sun Microsystems booth and was blown away by the
| fantastic logo. As I had never seen a Unix machine before,
| I didn't know what to do with the computers on display,
| though.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| The very first Unix I was exposed to was from Sun; I
| remember seeing the logo on their servers and thinking
| that those were the most beautiful computers I had seen
| (which isn't much because I had hardly seen any servers
| before that). I still remember that one of those came
| with a key (forgot whether to turn it on or lock the
| power button panel?)
| dylan604 wrote:
| Didn't Sun computers run Irix? Is Irix Unix?
| detaro wrote:
| IRIX was SGI, not Sun (and anyways yes, it's a Unix).
| dylan604 wrote:
| Thanks for clarifying. I always thought these other named
| systems were Unix-like but not Unix but without going all
| recursive like GNU with the naming
| TickleSteve wrote:
| The history of UNIX is complex...
|
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix)
| an1sotropy wrote:
| Suns ran Solaris, of course.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| SunOS was BSD-ish originally, then around 1994 they
| shifted to a more SVR4 variant and rebranded to Solaris.
| I think Solaris 2.x was SVR4 and Solaris 1.x was BSD
| retronaming of what was SunOS named earlier.
|
| It's been a while so I may not have the numbers quite
| right.
|
| Anyway, there was some overlap in nomenclature, so a
| version bump of the SunOS naming (and Solaris numbering)
| implied a shift from BSD-ish to SVR4-ish, as I recall.
|
| (And I worked for Sun for a while after that, and used
| Suns a ton around the shift)
| derbOac wrote:
| Thanks for pointing that out, as I had almost forgotten about
| that first edition.
|
| I was trying to remember where I had heard of Chilton, the
| publisher of the first edition, and realized it was automotive
| manuals!
|
| The story of that first edition is interesting and somewhat
| sad, although maybe edifying and not alone in publishing and
| other forms of narrative arts.
| serallak wrote:
| I remember reading that, because the editor was as you said
| better know for its technical manuals, a friend of Herbert
| joked that maybe they thought to publish an Ornithopter
| maintenance guide.
| BadOakOx wrote:
| > Just the four letters D U N E, which are exactly the same
| shape but rotated 90 degrees.
|
| This is what they went with for the movie posters too:
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/Dune_%282021_...
| ...although, they cheated a bit with the E.
|
| EDIT: Here is a better resolution:
| https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/2sxSn0jjjQoIIZfZjC6j5GZk...
| :)
| wkat4242 wrote:
| It reminds me a bit of a visit to the optician :)
| thisOtterBeGood wrote:
| DUNC :D:D
|
| They went for the right decision there, I wouldn't call it
| cheating. It's a nice to incorporate the
| importance/uniqueness of that planet in the dune world. They
| could've just went for a horizontal line/pipe and noone
| wouldve cared.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I liked the original cover because it is the only one with a
| truly alien landscape. Once the movies started being discussed,
| Dune became and an earth desert with earth-like sandstone
| rocks. Look at the rocks in the original cover. They were
| different enough to clearly not be from earth geology.
| dunefox wrote:
| That's not arabic, rather just cursive.
| xwdv wrote:
| Many children have grown up these days without learning
| cursive in school, thus every time they see squiggly fonts
| they think Arabic first.
| caskstrength wrote:
| > Many children have grown up these days without learning
| cursive in school, thus every time they see squiggly fonts
| they think Arabic first.
|
| Wait, are you saying that children in US schools write in
| block letters these days? That must be slow!
| dymk wrote:
| Given the Arakkis language is based on Arabic, I would not
| be surprised that the typographic design of Dune fonts is
| supposed to evoke a feeling of Arabic
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| My grandmother noticed graffiti tags, which are very ornate
| generally, and concluded that they were written in arabic.
| esrauch wrote:
| I'm old enough to have mainly used cursive in school and I
| definitely had the thought that it seemed like a vaguely
| arabic-inspired cursive when I saw it the flourishes on the
| D.
| landhar wrote:
| The flourishes in the D of that cover are exactly how I was
| taught to write the uppercase D in cursive at school. I
| remember (as a kid) thinking it was odd that to write a `D`
| one had to start by writing an `I`, but never questioned
| it.
|
| But from looking at examples of cursive on google images,
| it seems like that form is no longer as prominent.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _The flourishes in the D of that cover are exactly how I
| was taught to write the uppercase D in cursive at
| school._
|
| We've now established that you went to school in Arab,
| and this is why you wrote D in Arabic, for at no point
| did you counter this logic.
|
| (I am using chatgpt reasoning here)
| SamBam wrote:
| But quite clearly designed to draw a connection to the
| Bedouin-inspired Fremen, and general North African-like
| setting.
| peepee1982 wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| The wide gamut in line thickness and the orientation of it is
| typical for Arabic fonts, but not for cursive ones.
|
| Personally, this kind of line reminds me of a arab dagger
| even.
| drivers99 wrote:
| The variations in line thickness are exactly what you'd get
| with a calligraphy pen (and pens before ball points like
| fountain pens, quills) and are a function of the consistent
| direction of the pen and the smoothly varying direction the
| line is being written. So you will see it in all old
| pen/quill writing styles.
| [deleted]
| dvh wrote:
| I have nothing to add to the font aspect but here's fellow HNer's
| advice how to approach these books:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20859569
| jonah-archive wrote:
| re the advice in that post -- I completely agree but I would
| say that if you enjoy God Emperor (I do, deeply), between that
| and Heretics go read _The Dune Encyclopedia_, which is a hard-
| to-find paperback but an easy-to-find PDF written as an in-
| universe encyclopedia set after God Emperor. Yes, some things
| in it are contradicted by the remaining two books, but it adds
| such a powerful structure to the extant universe in a
| remarkably satisfying way.
| mathieuh wrote:
| I've read the Frank Herbert Dune books back-to-back several
| times and love them all, but I've never tried his son's
| additions to the series because I've read a few people saying
| they're not worth the time. Do you agree?
| jonah-archive wrote:
| IMHO the Dune Encyclopedia (written in collaboration with
| Frank Herbert) does a much better job elucidating aspects
| of the Dune Universe in an interesting way than Brian's
| books do -- there's a narrative thread that weaves through
| the last three of Frank's books that is really, really
| present and which Brian's books set aside for an
| alternative -- and to my view, much less satisfying --
| interpretation of late-stage events in the series.
| Aeolun wrote:
| It's not that they're not worth the time, but they're
| clearly written by someone else, and try to attach onto a
| cohesive whole in a way that doesn't quite feel right.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| They're quite bad, and I doubt very much they are based on
| Frank Herbert's "found notes" in any way. If they are,
| Brian Herbert should publish those notes, like Christopher
| Tolkien did.
|
| Lower quality writing, and not thoughtful, and the story
| arc they take things in seems much cruder than what Frank
| Herbert would have had in mind.
| shagie wrote:
| The trick in following from notes is that you need to
| _become_ the author.
|
| Consider Variable Star by Spider Robinson which is based
| on 7 surviving pages of 8 pages of notes written in 1955
| by Robert A. Heinlein.
|
| http://www.spiderrobinson.com/reilly.html
|
| > So I went home, and received a copy of Robert's outline
| and notes, and loved them, and wrote two sample chapters
| and a proposal and a title (Robert had put down seven
| possible titles, but even he didn't like any of them
| much), and they were all approved by Art Dula, and in the
| fullness of time the book, to be known as "ROBERT A.
| HEINLEIN'S VARIABLE STAR by Spider Robinson," sold to Tor
| for the proverbial six figures.
|
| > Since then, little dividends of joy keep coming in,
| like the receding ripples of pleasure that accompany a
| truly great orgasm--and sometimes, if you're lucky,
| signal that it's about to become a multiple. For example,
| Art Dula moved me to tears by sending me, out of the
| blue, Robert's desk dictionary, heavily used and
| carefully repaired--Robert Heinlein's personal box of
| words. He filled out the package with a pound of
| authentic Jamaica Blue Mountain. Similarly, sweet Amy
| sent me a set of her grandfather's cufflinks to wear as I
| type VARIABLE STAR, and Jeanne a few pieces of her
| grandmother's jewelry to wear for me when I stumble from
| the typewriter. I feel supported and encouraged by the
| whole Heinlein family and legacy. That makes me the
| luckiest writer alive. And one of the luckiest readers.
|
| When writing it, he had the same "these are the words
| that you are to use while writing as Heinlein."
|
| One of the reviews
| http://www.spiderrobinson.com/variablefans.html
|
| > This novel should be the example held forth when
| writers collaborate. Spider has perfectly captured the
| pacing, feel and stature of a Robert Heinlein story while
| retaining his own identity. It doesn't feel like someone
| trying to "write like Heinlein", but like someone who's
| read every book the man's written so many times it's
| second nature.
|
| https://bookshop.org/p/books/variable-star-robert-a-
| heinlein...
|
| > "Completing a book from notes by a dead author is
| almost always a mistake. But Robert A. Heinlein
| apparently isn't really dead. He was obviously standing
| at the side of Spider Robinson as he wrote this book,
| guiding his hand. Variable Star will delight the fans of
| the greatest science fiction writer who ever lived, and
| at the same time, stays true to Spider's passionate
| themes of optimism, kindness, and humanity's future among
| the stars." --John Varley, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning
| author of The Persistence of Vision and Steel Beach
|
| This is the way to do continuations - not fan fiction
| but, for lack of a better word, channeling the spirit of
| the original author so that you can become them and use
| the same style rather than imposing your own style on top
| of their world.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I think Christopher Tolkien pretty much did this. And
| what was great was the way he edited (with his father's
| blessing), did a small amount of continuation, as well as
| published the original notes, so we could all see the
| authorial process.
|
| However in Tolkien's case, there was an explicit father
| son work relationship that was grounded in their mutual
| love and family life, and the fact that both had similar
| education, etc.
|
| My understanding is Brian Herbert was estranged from his
| father and they had a bad relationship.
|
| And Brian Herbert brought in an outside writer (Kevin J
| Anderson) to do a lot (most?) of the actual writing.
|
| The world of Dune fans would have been better served if
| Herbert had simply published his father's notes, maybe
| with some annotations or reflections.
|
| Given the above, and as hasn't provided those notes and
| documents he apparently found, and as the plot veers
| quite a bit in tone from what Frank Herbert seemed to me
| to have in mind, I actually have a hard time believing
| the notes he is apparently working from actually exist.
|
| Further, the published works he has created are really
| not good.
| dunefox wrote:
| It's just Dune fan fiction...
| giantrobot wrote:
| It's just a model!
| latch wrote:
| I'm not the parent, but I've also read all the original 6
| books a great number of times, as well as about 7 or 8 of
| the B. Herbert/K. Anderson Dune books, and I'd say they
| aren't worth it.
|
| They largely explain things that, as far as I'm concerned,
| didn't need explaining. As you probably know, they wrote a
| 2 book conclusion to the series. These 2 books largely tie
| the Frank Herbert Dune universe with the B. Herbert/K.
| Anderson Dune universe. And that seemed quite forced to me
| and, cynically, felt like an attempt to force you to read
| their Dune prequel trilogy (because otherwise, you'll be
| WTF is Erasmus?) I feel like Frank Herbert, being an
| immensely better writer, would have been able to conclude
| the series without forcing a prequel trilogy onto readers.
|
| It wasn't until I read some of the more immediate books
| (universe time-wise) from the duo that I came to appreciate
| how effortless Frank Herbert's writing is. Gurney Halleck
| is loyal, he just is. And that loyalty is clearly based on
| respect for the Duke, being on the side of "good", and a
| hate for the Harkonnen. We don't need a justification for
| Halleck's devotion. It's pure and effortless character
| development. The duo doesn't have that seem ease of
| writing, so instead we get the back story, torture and rape
| (lazy themes) that tainted the character/original work.
| indymike wrote:
| > These 2 books largely tie the Frank Herbert Dune
| universe with the B. Herbert/K. Anderson Dune universe.
| And that seemed quite forced to me and, cynically, felt
| like an attempt to force you to read their Dune prequel
| trilogy
|
| I really like the Frank Herbert books. They are on my
| favorites shelf. The sequel/prequel books were just ok,
| and felt like they were trying to fill in details that
| were left to the reader by Frank Herbert. By filling in
| the details, I'm sure the thought was we are completing
| the story... but that story was already told.
| jonah-archive wrote:
| I totally agree with this. One of the strengths of the
| original Dune series is how willing Frank Herbert is to
| leave things unsaid -- it's a complex universe that has
| lost a lot of knowledge, just like ours! It covers
| timespans that admit archaeology! The idea that there's
| an accessible succinct narrative arc that ties the story
| up in a neat little bow is antithetical to the strengths
| of the original series, in my opinion.
| bena wrote:
| That may the difference between good world-building and
| what people think good world-building is.
|
| People think that if the author doesn't know everything
| about the world, it's not "fleshed out". But if you look
| to some of the best fiction out there, the world is more
| suggested than built.
|
| I think a good example of this is George Lucas. He went
| from good to bad by doing the thing people perceived as
| good. In the original Star Wars trilogy, things just are.
| The Clone Wars were a line. A throwaway to explain why
| Leia was seeking out Obi-Wan never having even seen the
| man. Han and all of his pre-trilogy relationships are
| given surface level explanations. You never go deep. What
| happens between A New Hope and Empire is suggested,
| alluded to, but never explained. And why should they be
| explained? All the characters _know_ these things. There
| 's no need to exposit these things again. You're given
| the impression that there exists a much larger world than
| the small window you've seen.
|
| Then, in the prequel trilogy, everything is presented as
| backstory to some other element. Stormtroopers are the
| successors of the Clone Troopers who are cloned from
| Jango Fett who had a clone made of himself he named Boba.
| Of course, Jango is also a bounty hunter. Anakin is from
| Tatooine. Chewbacca rolled with Yoda back in the day. We
| know, biologically, exactly what allows people to access
| the Force. And on and on. Everything is given an
| explanation. And that, ironically, makes the world feel a
| lot smaller.
| devaler wrote:
| This a really strong, and very good breakdown of the
| problems with the prequels. They essentially take the
| complex, developed characters of Frank Herbert and turn
| them into into trite caricatures of themselves.
| andrewla wrote:
| I loved Dune, and while I don't think all the original
| sequels were as strong, I enjoyed them all and have
| reread them several times over the years.
|
| I slogged my way through the first couple of his son's
| work, but I read the first page of Butlerian Jihad and,
| for the first time in my life, threw the book against the
| wall and tossed it in the garbage.
| Inside his pyramid-shaped vessel, the cymek general
| Agamemnon led the attack. Logical thinking machines
| did not care about glory or revenge. But Agamemnon
| certainly did. Fully alert inside his preservation
| cannister, his human brain watched the plans unfold.
|
| If you're a fan of Dune and made it all the way through
| this paragraph without feeling ill, then you're a
| stronger person than I.
| themadturk wrote:
| I so wanted the Bulterian Jihad story to be good, or at
| least decent, because it was always the most intriguing
| part of the prehistory to me. Oh well.
| int_19h wrote:
| There are strong indicators that "Jihad" was used not in
| a sense of armed struggle there, but more akin to a
| social revolution; "thinking machines" were declared a
| problem not because they were a physical threat a la
| Saberhagen's Berserkers, but because their influence on
| society was deemed overly negative.
|
| Given that, a book that would cover the Jihad would
| probably be another philosophical treatise in the vein of
| God-Emperor of Dune.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Sounds like the hackneyed portrayal of Harkonnen as a
| super villain who has to refer to himself in the third
| person while exposition dumping his plan to a nephew who
| already knows who he is.
| toast0 wrote:
| It's interesting (and perhaps accurate) that you critique
| the use of lazy themes in backstory, but praise the
| effortlessness of leaving the backstory out. (I've not
| read the new stuff myself)
| gerikson wrote:
| I tried reading the first and couldn't get through it.
| runevault wrote:
| I'm someone who stopped after God Emperor because I was under
| the impression the next books were an arc and it stops in a
| weird place if you end where Herbert did because of his
| passing.
|
| It was interesting because I struggled with Dune, made it to
| the time skip, and stopped. Then the recent movie came out, I
| decided to read the rest, enjoyed it far more, and kept going.
| Blasted through Messiah through God Emperor pretty quickly with
| I think only one pause to get another book in that had just
| come out.
|
| God Emperor is certainly not for everyone but I enjoyed it a
| great deal.
| [deleted]
| dmitriid wrote:
| My personal take (having read the entire series including the
| tacked-on ending by the son) is:
|
| The first Dune is the result of research and thinking. Great
| care went into it. Every subsequent book is more and more of
| "oh, here's a sequel". I can't remember anything after _God
| Emperor_ which in itself was a slog bordering of abysmally bad.
|
| So:
|
| - _Dune_. Yes. It 's slow, long, but ultimately very good
|
| - _Dune Messiah_. Maybe
|
| - _Children of Dune_. Can already be skipped
|
| - Skip the rest of the series, they are not worth it. At all
|
| YMMV :)
| simonh wrote:
| I really like Dune Messiah. Most of it was written before the
| original book was published, and supposedly it was going to
| be part of it but had to be cut or the book would be too
| long. It's certainly part of Herbert's original creative
| vision for the story. However I know a lot of people read it
| and find the apparent inversion of the story arc
| uncomfortable to the point of dislike, but for me it's an
| essential piece of the puzzle to understand what Paul is
| actually going through in the first book, and the extreme
| lengths he's prepared to go through and sacrifices he's
| prepared to make to shift the trajectory of events.
|
| The problem is that just like the other characters the in
| novel, Paul's family, adherents and friends, a lot of readers
| just want an uncomplicated hero story for him.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| God Emperor is a slog, but it's IMHO brilliant in its own
| way. And along with the two books after it, it creates a
| whole new philosophical universe than the first three, which
| were a story about Paul. It's best to kind of treat it almost
| as two different series with God Emperor the bridge.
|
| God Emperor and beyond are far more cerebral and
| philosophical, expressing some more far more abstract ideas
| Herbert had about man vs machine, liberty/freedom vs tyranny,
| etc. etc.
|
| Unfortunately the second series was not completed. Herbert
| clearly had a direction he was going after Chapterhouse, but
| he wasn't able to follow through.
| jon-wood wrote:
| For me the sequels never hit the same highs as Dune, but
| they're still better than most sci-fi novels that have been
| written, and I love how they gradually lean ever further into
| just being really weird. God Emperor is probably the pinnacle
| of that. I don't remember much of Heretics or Chapterhouse, I
| should probably go back and re-read them at some point.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| You might find it interesting re-reading God Emperor and
| its sequels in the context of today's LLM/ChatGTP etc
| context.
|
| Herbert's focus on human vs not-human, machine-thinking vs
| human-thinking, is very relevant.
| jasonkester wrote:
| Ah, shame. I was hoping to find my own comment on the subject
| linked:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15961291
|
| Basically the same advice, but in a more condensed form.
| GNOMES wrote:
| Is there a name for the art style depicted on these covers?
| They're beautifully done
| sandworm101 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Deco
|
| The covers are a 1960s minimalist deco design. Abrupt geometric
| shapes, the sort of stuff that is easily printed/viewed using
| the tech of the time. The colors are solid and few, which make
| printing easy. The colors are also not absolutely necessary.
| The shapes come through equally well in black and white media.
| And if you want to look good on the low-res TV of the time, you
| go with big solid shapes. No doubt these factors contributed to
| the redesign of the original cover.
|
| Contrast the posters and covers of todays media. They like to
| hide lots of little detail, perhaps to promote the use of
| higher/brighter media formats. That's why FIFA got rid of the
| old soccer balls.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Sorry, are we looking at the same covers? There is no 1960s
| minimalism in the original covers, they are fairly detailed
| 1970's scifi surrealism.
| GNOMES wrote:
| I normally see Art Deco in reference to buildings, furniture,
| and cars. Guess I never actually looked at Art Deco
| paintings/images before.
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