Book cover analysis-study task 2 (OUGD406)

The book cover includes a piece of photographic work by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore. The relevance of this image is that 6 spreads of the book are about them. The image is from a book called ''war and peace in the global village'' - some people say this book was a ''crude publicity tactic'' but from a design perspective is was ''a landmark in the integration of text,image and layout. The use of full bleed spread images and their correlation with smaller images and type destabilized the traditional hierarchy of image, caption, type and illustration. McLuhan was the writer and Fiore was the self taught designer. 

What is the intended message?

I think its designed to mimic a double page spread, the yellow and black has connotations of danger and hazard which I think is really negative and uneffective. It looks more like a horror/thriller book rather than a design book. The offset type actually looks more like a mistake and i'm unsure of why they've made this design decision. I think if you're already aware of the artists whose work features on the cover this could be an appealing factor but in current day the designer isn't well known so it seems unappealing and not successful in showing the content of the book. 

Is the cover successful in communicating the content?

I think the content in the book is extremely broad and this cover only communicates a small section. I think is would of been more interesting to see something type related considering the mass of the book is about type and symbols. 

How could it be better communicated?

Personally I think the cover could of been less photography based and possibly include a more interesting and engaging use of type. The most interesting looking part of the book to me is ''A brief history of written numbers'', it could be engaging and relevant to use some of the symbols featured in this section within the cover design. The typeface looks like its Arial bold which I think looks quite strong and professional but I think using Helvetica or one of the other fonts mentioned in the book itself to have more relevance to the content.