Series
a group or a number of related or similar things, events, etc., arranged or occurring in temporal, spatial, or other order or succession.Sequence
a continuous or connected series.
Sign
any object, action, event, pattern, etc., that conveys a meaning.
Index
a sensory feature such as something directly visible, audible, or smellable that 'points to' something of interest to an animal.
Icon
a pattern that physically resembles what it 'stands for'.
Symbol
something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible.
A really good book cover has to work regardless of what it’s about, on a visceral and emotional level. Chip Kidd
Its funny, because when I look back on everything, I realize that I have been judging books by their covers my entire life. I have never been a big reader, though I have been trying to change that lately, but it is inevitable that a twelve year old kid will roam through the library only sparking interest in book covers with really awesome illustrations and graphics. It has been something that I have done unconsciously my entire life and now that I think about it, I laugh. A successful book cover in my eyes is simply one that sticks out. Countless techniques can be used to make this happen such as using interesting type, using a lot of white space, creating interesting/awkward illustrations (Brave New World), etc. The book cover should almost convey the story in itself as its what's going to spark the most interest from the initial glance, so it has to have character, personality and uniqueness. Here are a few that I enjoyed browsing through:
My Book Selections
I chose three books from three different authors including Aldous Huxley's: Brave New World, Ray Bradbury's: Fahrenheit 451, and George Orwell's: 1984. Each of these three books are solely based on future corruption within society.
Aldous Huxley
I chose three books from three different authors including Aldous Huxley's: Brave New World, Ray Bradbury's: Fahrenheit 451, and George Orwell's: 1984. Each of these three books are solely based on future corruption within society.
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley was a humanist and pacifist, and he was latterly interested in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism. He is also well known for advocating and taking psychedelics.
Ray Bradbury
Bradbury--the author of more than 500 short stories, novels, plays, and poems, including The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man--is the winner of many awards, including the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. Readers ages 13 to 93 will be swept up in the harrowing suspense of Fahrenheit 451, and no doubt will join the hordes of Bradbury fans worldwide.
Associated Word List
By the end of his life Huxley was considered, in some academic circles, a leader of modern thought and an intellectual of the highest rank, and highly regarded as one of the most prominent explorers of visual communication and sight-related theories as well.
Brave New World:
Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today--let's hope the sterility and absence of individuality he predicted aren't yet to come.
Brave New World:
Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today--let's hope the sterility and absence of individuality he predicted aren't yet to come.
Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury is one of those rare individuals whose writing has changed the way people think. His more than five hundred published works -- short stories, novels, plays, screenplays, television scripts, and verse -- exemplify the American imagination at its most creative.
Once read, his words are never forgotten. His best-known and most beloved books, THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, THE ILLUSTRATED MAN, FAHRENHEIT 451 and SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, are masterworks that readers carry with them over a lifetime. His timeless, constant appeal to audiences young and old has proven him to be one of the truly classic authors of the 20th Century -- and the 21st.
In recognition of his stature in the world of literature and the impact he has had on so many for so many years, Bradbury was awarded the National Book Foundation's 2000 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, an the National Medal of Arts in 2004.
Fahrenheit 451:
In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."
Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television "family," imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbor Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.
In recognition of his stature in the world of literature and the impact he has had on so many for so many years, Bradbury was awarded the National Book Foundation's 2000 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, an the National Medal of Arts in 2004.
Fahrenheit 451:
In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."
Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television "family," imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbor Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.
Bradbury--the author of more than 500 short stories, novels, plays, and poems, including The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man--is the winner of many awards, including the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. Readers ages 13 to 93 will be swept up in the harrowing suspense of Fahrenheit 451, and no doubt will join the hordes of Bradbury fans worldwide.
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense, revolutionary opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief indemocratic socialism.
Considered perhaps the 20th century's best chronicler of English culture, he wrote literary criticism and poetry, as well as fiction and polemical journalism. He is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945). His Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences as a volunteer on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, and his numerous essays are widely acclaimed. Orwell's influence on culture, popular and political, continues. Several of his neologisms, along with the term Orwellian, have entered the language.
Nineteen Eighty-Four:
Among the seminal texts of the 20th century, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmare vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff's attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell's prescience of modern life--the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language--and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written.
Among the seminal texts of the 20th century, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmare vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff's attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell's prescience of modern life--the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language--and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written.
Associated Word List
alienation estrangement corruption futurity enslavement self-expression totalitarian society utopia unhappy | dehumanizing conformity programming crisis conditioning happiness inescapable destiny dignity inferiority | prophecy propaganda ironic dystopia subjugation subjection obsession discomfort melancholy dull | mysterious censorship independence manslaughter innocence rebel curiosity mechanical infallible over-dependence | hedonistic outlaw humanity frenzy epicurean voluptuary luxurious somber renegade mindless |
propaganda the systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.
epicurean a devotee to sensuous and luxurious living; an epicure.
censorship prevention of disturbing or painful thoughts or feelings from reaching consciousness except in a disguised form.
totalitarian exercising control over the freedom, will, or thought of others; authoritarian; autocratic.
utopia the perfect society.
conditioning a process of changing behavior by rewarding or punishing a subject each time an action is performed until the subject associates the action with pleasure or distress.
alienation the state of being withdrawn or isolated from the objective world, as through indifference or disaffection.
melancholy a gloomy state of mind, esp. when habitual or prolonged; depression.
futurity a future state or condition; a future event, possibility, or prospect.
dehumanizing to deprive of human qualities such as individuality, compassion, or civility.
Tone of the Series
To suggest:
to suggest that society can become very corrupted
to suggest that humanity will only find happiness in substance
to suggest that censorship is abused
to suggest the ignorance in humanity that will allow the totalitarian society
to suggest the discomfort between man and technology
to suggest that the utopian society isn't what it seems
to suggest that society can become very corrupted
to suggest that humanity will only find happiness in substance
to suggest that censorship is abused
to suggest the ignorance in humanity that will allow the totalitarian society
to suggest the discomfort between man and technology
to suggest that the utopian society isn't what it seems
Quotations
I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance. ~Reuben Blades
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. ~Krishnamurti
We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal . . . A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind.
It’s perpetual motion; the thing man wanted to invent but never did. . . . It’s a mystery. . . . Its real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences . . . clean, quick, sure; nothing to rot later. Antibiotic, aesthetic, practical.
We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing. I looked around. The only thing I positively knew was gone was the books I'd burned in ten or twelve years. So I thought books might help.
"And that," put in the Director sententiously, "that is the secret of happiness and virtue— liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny."
You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We’ve sacrificed the high art."
"The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. ~Albert Einstein
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. ~Aldous Huxley
Maybe this world is another planets hell. ~Aldous Huxley
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