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We all know the old adage (only one “d”, really?….someone dropped the ball on that one) referred to in the title of this post.  As you may know from browsing this blog, a friend and I are on a mission to learn German while documenting the sum total of our knowledge.  As you might also know from browsing this blog, we have an attention span similar to a goldfish and have yet to open the book that we intend on using.  Well, we finally finished reading the front cover…  And as usual we were distracted by so many things…  The book being referred to is German: A Self Teaching Guide (Second Edition) from the STG (self-teaching guides) series.  Take a look at the cover through the link.  And now, we will try to justify the fact that we have not opened this book….  Here’s what happened.

The bulk of this color is yellow.  It’s bright, it grabs one’s attention, and will certainly remind everyone of French fries (smart food, adopting a capitalized adjective to make it look superior to other foods). Focus, focus!  We are learning German…what does yellow have to do with German?  Well, it is combined with black and red on this book cover.  Yellow, Black, red….I bet you got it…….  If not, click here and hope nobody sees.  Immediately we were impressed by this book cover.  Kudos to Umi Kenyon, the designer of this eye-catching, thoughtful, page-enveloping, piece of thick paper.  (Umi Kenyon also designed Richie Sambora’s album Stranger in this Town….unless there are multiple designers named Umi Kenyon).

Mr. Kenyon aside, this cover can also teach one what not to do when selling a book.  First, the notification of revision for 2008 in the upper right-hand corner.  I purchased this book now, in 2010 and am not comforted by this bit of information.  “Second Edition” alone would suffice.  Also, observe the first bullet point concerning a “proven” structure that aids in the learning process.  What do they mean by this?  Yes, I guess the act of printing words on paper and distributing it to others for educational reasons is a proven learning format.  Excepting this, show me the proof!  But the second bullet point alerting the reader to this book’s application of the most modern rules of German spelling is comforting.  Not all books stay modern…  The Lonely Planet Croatian phrasebook with the blue cover (if you can still find it) uses the word nužnik in a basic phrase needed to ask for the toilet (my hundreds of Croatian readers will find this amusing and antiquated).

Focus, Focus!  Eventually we will learn German.  But allow this post to be a message to book cover designers everywhere.  An Umi Kenyon-style thoughtfulness will be appreciated and noticed!  Extraneous text will be judged and either make a company look as if they care about the product, or the product’s income stream.  Choose carefully…  Enough for now, I’m done typing!

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