Dust jacket, cover design and title page design of The Rancho of the Little Loves : / design by George Salter
Physical Description
1 online resource (1 dust jacket, 1 cover design, and 1 title page) : color
Date
1956
Notes
Dust jacket, cover design, and title page design of The Rancho of the Little Loves : [a novel] / by Robert Nathan ; illustrated by George Salter. First edition. New York : Knopf, 1956. Series: A Borzoi Book
Cover, dust jacket, and title page design for: The Rancho of the Little Loves :[a novel] /by Robert Nathan ; illustrated by George Salter. First edition. New York : Knopf, 1956.
Summary
The cover design has a dark blue background with white stars of different sizes spread all over. The blue background has varying shades giving the appearance of vertical stripes. There are two small, red labels, one on the top of the spine and one on the bottom of the spine. The top label extends about an inch onto the front cover, while the bottom label extends about an inch onto the back cover. Each label has a decorative red border. The bottom label has the publisher’s name in a calligraphic font adjacent to the series symbol. The top label has the title and author’s name printed in a calligraphic font. The author’s name is in all capital letters. Adjacent the title is a tiny, white drawing of a bearded man in robes looking down.
The dust jacket has a yellow background. The front cover is illustrated with three drawings. In the right-hand corner are two men in brown robes standing on clouds. They are pointing to an illustration at the center left-hand side of a man in blue pants holding the hands of a woman in a long, yellow and red striped skirt and red tank top. The man is standing with his back to the viewer. At the bottom of the cover is a drawing of a ranch in the desert. A single star is in the night sky above the ranch. The title of the book fills in the spaces adjacent to the top two illustrations. The title is printed in a red calligraphic font. Beneath the title and two illustrations is the subtitle, printed in dark blue font, all capital letters, that has slightly swooping letters, and justified to the right. The author’s name is printed below the subtitle and above the third illustration. The author’s name is printed in the same red, calligraphic font as the title and is justified to the center. An additional statement of responsibility is printed just beneath the third illustration in red. The additional statement of responsibility is printed in a mix of calligraphic font and the swooping, all-capitalized font. The spine has rectangular shapes of yellow and red with patches of midnight blue at the top and bottom. Each rectangular shape is separated by crenulated edges. In the center red rectangle is the title is printed in yellow, calligraphic font. Above the title is the author’s name printed in a red, swooping font, all capital letters inside the top yellow rectangle. In the bottom yellow rectangle is the series symbol in blue and the publisher’s name in the red swooping fond, all capital letters.
The title page has similar illustrations has the dust jacket cover. There are three black-line drawings on the title page. Near the top is the first illustration of of two men in robes peering down from a cloud. The second illustration is closure to the center of the page and is of a man and a woman interacting with each other. The woman wears a striped circle skirt. She has one arm held out to the side and is turning away from a man behind her. The man is wearing a bowtie and has a tucked in shirt. He holds his arms in front of himself as if pleading with the woman. To the left of the woman is a smaller illustration of a ranch in the desert. The text of the title page is staggered to the right, giving the impression of floating like drifting clouds. The title, author’s names, and publisher’s name are printed chiefly in black calligraphic font. Some of the text of the statements of responsibility and the place of publication are printed in a swooping font, and partly in all capital letters.
George Salter (1897-1967) was a noted American and German book designer. Born and raised in an affluent German-Jewish family, Salter began his artistic career primarily as a set designer in Berlin, working for such prestigious theaters as the Prussian State Opera and the Berliner Volksoper. He began to focus on commercial book design in the late 1920s and had produced 350 designs by 1934, when he fled Nazi Germany. When he arrived in New York, his work was already known thanks to an exhibit, in late 1933, at Columbia University mounted by Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, curator of the University’s Rare Book Department. Salter’s designs were widely sought after by American publishers, and he received a steady flow of design commissions. His beautifully drawn and lettered jackets served as an elegant window into the works of renowned authors such as Albert Camus, John Dos Passos, and Thomas Mann. George Salter was elected to membership at the Grolier Club in 1951. Between 1937 and 1967, he also taught at the Cooper Union in New York, where he offered courses in calligraphy and lettering. In the US, he worked for eighty-nine different publishers, ultimately creating at least 715 different book jackets. Salter’s creations encompassed a wide array of styles and media. His work exhibited exquisite craftsmanship, as well as balance between typography and images. Salter found influence in such art movements as the Russian constructivists, the Bauhaus school, and the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk of the German Jugendstil. George Salter’s work has become the benchmark by which contemporary book design is still measured today.
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Citation
Salter, George: Dust jacket, cover design and title page design of The Rancho of the Little Loves : / design by George Salter, Leo Baeck Institute, st 4610 Salter v. 154 Book design.
