This past weekend the Design Research Conference was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Louis Rosenfeld, a leader in the field of information architecture, was one of the speakers and he addressed the role of design in the book world and the challenges that publishers face.
It is no secret that the visual component of a book is directly tied to sales. Rosenfeld believes that design affects not only the inside and outside of the book but also the brand of the book and the author. The visual component of a book and its author now extend far beyond the physical book. Websites, social media sites, second life, avatars, and book trailers all demand design attention.
The ultimate success of a book can depend on your showing in one of these non-textual arenas. Rosenfeld suggests hiring an art director to deal with the cross-pollination.
The ultimate success and survival of bookselling is also tied this approach. Like the book and its author have to extend their reach to increase their chance for success, the bookseller has to extend his. It is no longer viable for most booksellers to sell only one type of book. The more elements you can add to the mix (ie. used books, rare books, artist books, fine press books, altered books) the more powerful the potion. Adding blank books to the inventory of a new bookstore is not going to cut it.
Previous Book Patrol post Bookselling 2.0 where I touched on the need for cross-pollination in the book trade.
Thanks to Futurelab for the lead. They have a short video of a part of Rosenfeld’s talk at the conference.