Designer Bruises Bosoms on Books

The bared bosoms which book publishers have taken to pointing up on the dust jackets of their novels were attacked by Merle Armitage, art director of Look, at a meeting of graphic arts leaders this week in Fogg Museum.

"Once a customer has been stung into buying such a book, he will be wary the second time, if the cover is merely a lurid disguise for a poorly designed, badly printed book," Armitage declared.

Thus, he argued, the breasty covers not only leave a stale taste in the purchaser's mouth, but are just not good business. On this basis, Armitage continued, book-reading can never compete in the entertainment field with "such superbly packaged rivals as radio, movies, and television."

Armitage, a noted book designer himself, said that all 54 of the books he designed were failures. "But failures in the right direction," he added, "away from the styles and attitudes of the past."