This cover makes me tired. Is there really a building in existence with this many stairs?? I would pass out and die bringing home groceries (imagine lugging a gallon of milk and a 12 pack of soda up this staircase!). In fact, I'd probably stay at a hotel most nights to avoid the stairs. Well, actually, recognizing my own limitations (read: laziness), I'd NEVER get an apartment in such a building. It reminds me of the staircase in the apartment in Glasgow that the characters of Shallow Grave shared.
You can sort of see it in the bottom half of this movie poster.
But that was only probably 3 floors. This looks like 15 or so.
Also, does it seem to anyone else that the "Mary Jane Clark" font is strikingly similar to the font used for Mary Higgins Clark's books? Such as:
Just sayin'....
12 comments:
I've always found the Mary Jane Clark, Mary Higgins Clark font similarities a pain. They were always getting interfiled on the library shelves, and then toss Carol Higgins Clark into the mess for more fun. Makes me wonder if Mary Jane Clark, cleverly changed her last name for marketing purposes.
Do they have the same editor? I agree with Alissa, it can get confusing.
On the first cover, yikes, it makes me dizzy! Can you imagine being in a hurry and having to deal with all those stairs?
Drama! Mary Higgins Clark is her former mother-in-law, sez Wikipedia.
Haha, the cover makes me very tired too -- "Lord have mercy and kill me so I don't have to climb these stairs again!"
The stairs probably don't even make an appearance in the book.
The Clark family certainly is a busy one -- the former sister in-law Carol Higgins Clark is also a suspense author, though her covers make her books look more like they were self-published.
i'm thinking the similarities between words is guiding your perception about the similarity between these typefaces. because in no sense is trajan "strikingly" like a bodoni.
that's the thing about type classification, at first, all typefaces look alike. but then you notice that one has super contrast between thicks and thins and extremely flat serifs. the other has serifs that are longer in one direction than the other, and is missing half the serifs in letters such as N and M. just look at the R in each sample--what's similar there?
yeah, apart from general similarities (both are serifs, both are latin letterforms) these fonts are only tied together by their placement on these covers and the words in the names of the authors.
Dear Anonymous:
While I agree that there're a lot of subtle differenced between typefaces, I have to agree with my esteemed colleague, BikerPuppy, in pointing out that to the layperson THOSE COVERS LOOK MIGHTY SIMILAR!!!! Whew, I feel better.
i was just responding to the question posed: "does it seem to anyone else that the "Mary Jane Clark" font is strikingly similar to the font used for Mary Higgins Clark's books?"
i agree with you about the cover in general being mighty similar. but i think the layout carries that more than the font. and the names clinch it. so what i was saying is that the OTHER similarities give the same impression about the fonts.
didn't mean to argue, just to engage the question.
Re: the staircase.
I wonder if this is meant to be reminiscent of the oval staircase in the US Supreme Court. The oval staircase there does two spirals per floor (they have very, very high ceilings at the court), from basement to the third floor.
There aren't that many oval staircases in the world.
While the railing in this cover is different, it's very reminiscent of the rosettes on the Supreme Court ceiling.
I don't know who in marketing, however, would have had occasion to look DOWN the oval staircase like that--you have to be with an employee of the Court to get up there--or how many of them could channel the ceiling rosettes.
So it was a very, very evocative cover for me that made me instantly think "high stakes courtroom drama."
Doubt if it would have that effect for many other people.
Vertigo, you see this in Vertigo. Pick either the movie or the psychiatric disorder. Hitchcock even had ot invent a camera technique to show it in the movie Vertigo.
Those stairs make me think of Ghostbusters: "When we get to floor 20, I'm going to throw up."
Why yes. Yes there really a building in existence with this many stairs. The Rookery in Chicago - the interior was re-done at one point by Frank Lloyd Wright.
http://www.therookery-chicago.com/
paxpax: I will NEVER go there. :)
Post a Comment