Abstract
This chapter diagnoses current problems in Russian book design. After the initial years of freewheeling, book design grew increasingly important in the second half of the 1990s. But without coherent design concepts and clearly defined reader segments, the result was often disconcerting hybrid genres. Behind a seemingly ever-growing output of titles up to 2008, the chapter reveals that a few large players recycle the same literary content under changing series titles and book covers. Designers react skeptically to internationalization aims such as the introduction of the Berne Convention, ISBN barcodes, and new directions of book spine titles. Finally, Pristed observes an increasing polarization between the ever-diminishing discount paperback series and the new monumental dimensions of exclusive leather volumes in the style of “capitalist realism.”
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For a detailed study of the complex copyright question in Russia, see Elst, 2005.
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Except those of the Soviet publishing house Prosveshchenie (Enlightenment [or Education]), which printed the titles on educational books top to bottom.
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Statistics of the years since 2008 are available online, on the Russian Book Chamber’s website: http://www.bookchamber.ru/content/stat/statinfo.html (accessed August 23, 2012).
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In a comparative perspective, Russian publishers have no reason to complain about readers’ activity. Hence, a report of the American National Endowment for the Arts celebrates that the adult literary reading rate of the United States has risen from 46.7 % in 2002 to 50.2% in 2008, while 54.3 % read any book (Gioia 2009).
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See the visual presentation at: http://www.kremlin2000.ru/ (accessed on August 28, 2012).
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Pristed, B.B. (2017). Russian Book Design Today. In: The New Russian Book. New Directions in Book History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50708-8_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50708-8_4
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