‘Censored’ Book Cover That Changes Over Time Gets Internet’s Awe
Image via Amazon UK
Do you ever feel guilty leaving books on your shelf and never getting around to reading them? Luckily, this one makes more sense the longer you keep it around.
Book designer David Pearson’s cover of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four has been the stuff of fascination since its publication in 2013. The sleeve appears to play the long game, with a potential outlook revealing itself over time. This edition by Penguin Books sees the title being blanked out in black foiling, a clever reflection of the classic’s exploration of censorship by Big Brother and the rewriting of history.
The text becomes a bit more legible when you glance at it from the side. It’s a creative way to help readers grasp the book’s themes without exposing too much—if anything, at all.
That’s not the most impressive detail, though. Readers who have held onto their copies for a while have noticed that the “censoring” layer gets erased as time goes by, seemingly alluding to the hope that the truth will prevail in the future.
Thanks to this well-thought-out feature, the design continues to be a great talking point on Reddit a decade after this version first hit bookshelves.
[via Open Culture and Creative Bloq, images via various sources]
