Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore
Bell Gothic originally was designed to serve at very small sizes: Chauncey H. Griffith created it in 1938 for the telephone directories of the Bell Telephone Company. That doesn’t hinder graphic designers today to apply it very big, to expose its quirky details like the r’s heavy arm or the i’s blocky dot, and to reuse these features as eye-catchers.
The Frog Hospital cover was among AIGA’s 50 Covers of 1995. This is what Barbara deWilde wrote about her rationale:
Lorrie Moore is a great writer read mostly by women, but the men who do read her books often worship her. Her first two hardcover books were so pink that few men would have been attracted to them. With Frog Hospital I wanted to change all this, but every time I added color or image or any typographic display the meaning of the words changed and the design detracted from the original plaintive, open tone of the title. So, I have to say this is design by omission. And what it becomes is just a large question which really stands out in the fiction section of the bookstore … and hopefully attracts a wide audience.
