Coffeehouse Repertoire 1.e4 by Gawain Jones

Hello again, with another debate for a new book cover!

Did you know that Gawain was working on these books? Well, now you do 🙂

After our previous debate for Sam Shankland’s Small Steps 2 Success, once again we ask for your input for this cover. We are settled on the color scheme and on the cover for volume 2, as you can see on the top left corner. Which one would you prefer for volume one? And which one you definitely don’t want to see on the cover?

44 thoughts on “Coffeehouse Repertoire 1.e4 by Gawain Jones”

  1. Am I the only one who leapt to the conclusion this would be a 10-book repertoire? 😀

    I would stay away from the covers with an orange background (top far left, bottom far left). The other bottom four with a White background look “Cleanest” to my eyes. If I had to choose one, I’d go with the second-from right, bottom row with the white lines through the chess pieces on the orange cup.

  2. I would prefer only two-color combination like the second from left in top row with all orange parts turn blue, or the second from left in bottom row with white cup and blue author name.

    If that not possible then I vote for second from left in bottom row.

    — s.

  3. I’d say the cover should be coffeehouse-proof so no white background, maybe the bottom left (a1 square). The orange background is a vintage reminder of chess informants.

  4. Benjamin Fitch

    I like all the covers; just wanted to add that I hope the books come with a list of actual coffeehouses where one can sit and play chess nowadays. (Must have good coffee.)

  5. Kinghartattack

    What lovely cover designs Kallia! I really like the cover of Volume 2 so you could do exactly the same for Volume 1 so it is clear they are a matching pair of books. Alternatively I like the bottom left cover for Volume 1 as I really like the orange surround which also matches up with Volume 2 – they will clearly look like a pair on the bookshelf! However I would change the title to white so that it stands out and the author to blue to match Volume 2.

  6. Surely the cofee(-cup) should be a shade of brown/organgish brown? So, for me the second on the top row (nice crisp contrasts in colors otherwise – which is less good to my eyes in the 5th of the first row and the 4th in the second row) or perhaps the one just below. But they all look quite good.

  7. I’d vote for number 4 with blue letters “Coffeehouse Repertoire” and orange “Volume 1”.
    This would somehow “invert” the colors of Volume 2 consistently.
    If that doesn’t work, I think number 9 is pretty cool because the orange background matches with the blue title.

  8. Orange and blue are not an ideal combination as both are hard on the eyes. However, #4 (White background with orange title) is easiest and quickest to grasp. However, I suggest changing the authors name to white instead of orange. Orange letters on blue are very difficult to read.

  9. @Kinghartattack
    When we have two or more volumes making up the overall work, we never make the colour schemes identical, as a customer who owns Volume 1, for instance, might be casually browsing a bookstall or shop where Volume 2 is on sale, and unless they look closely they might not realize it’s a different book. So we always change the design from one volume to the next – but at the same time coordinate them in a way that makes them easily identifiable as belonging to the same series.

  10. The ninth and changing orange cup and series title to white and the name Gawain Jones to blue. Orange is a k.o.-criterium for covers here.

  11. All of them are gorgeous, the color scheme is amazingly vintage! But 1, 6 and 8 have to be my favourites. Looking forward to those books! 🙂

  12. Just to reiterate an important part of Kallia’s post: the colour scheme has been settled, in the sense that all of us at QC like the combination of orange and blue with some white.
    That is why all ten of the sample covers feature a different combination of orange, blue and white.
    We are not going to remove any of these colours, or change to bright pink or whatever, just because one of you prefers it that way.
    We value your input, but please keep it relevant by stating which cover you prefer, rather than suggesting radical changes to the scheme which has already been finalised.

  13. For volume 1 : the second cover.
    For volume 2 : the third cover.
    Both are clearly the most beautiful in my eyes.

  14. I like the design for the cover.
    However I have a pretty common colour blindness that makes it hard for me to read orange text on blue background, e.g. “1. e4” in cover 5 or “volume 1” in cover 6. If you choose white text on blue or the opposite, there’s no issues. It is also more readable when the text is bold, like “Gawain Jones” and the book title.

  15. What I find funny is the baseball team I follow is those colors, Blue, Orange, and White.

    But that aside, if this is going to be 10 books, why are we taking the same colors and shuffling? Why not have them be different colors so that they are easy to distinguish. For example, in the Gelfand Books, the first had Red lettering, the second Green, the upcoming Blue and Yellow.

    Even other publishers use different colors for each edition, like another publisher that shall remain anonymous did their Chess Pattern Recognition books in Red and Blue (Green for the German edition, I think).

    So why not do them different here? Easier to distinguish. If you have the whole set, 1…e5 may be Blue, Sicilian may be Red, French Green, Caro-Kann Yellow, Pirc/Modern Purple, Alekhine Black, Scandinavian Orange, Nimzovich Brown, etc.

  16. I’ll second the orange-on-blue difficulty to read comment above for those of us with color challenges. Any of the others are fine, and I like the second from left of the top row or the middle of the bottom row best.

  17. The design is appealing. Commendably different, and good.
    Blue text on orange and orange text on blue isn’t ideal. Print Design 101 – do light on dark or dark on light, and don’t mix the two. Reminds me of some horror websites of the early internet, late 90s.
    Assuming it is 1-5 top, l>r, 6-10 bottom, l>r, that excludes 1,3, 4, 5,9 here. 10 just about gets away with it, with a darker hue of blue.
    Look forward to this. The approach of ‘forward and turn right’ is a good one and the author’s dragon books impressed.
    Charge…!

  18. I agree that the text contrast is a real problem here, even for ‘normal’ sighted people. And it’s the 21st century, we should be considering people with common sight issues.

    Given that volume 2 is more or less fixed, I suggest the following tweak:

    Use image 2 for volume 1, but keep all text in the image 2 colours. That means the only mediocre contrast left is the orange ‘Coffeehouse Repertoire’ on white in both volumes and the white authors name on an orange background for volume 2. The large text should allow you to get away with that.

    This leaves the colour flip as blue frame/orange cup and vice-versa.

    I’d also try to find some space to slightly increase the size of ‘Volume 1’ and ‘Volume 2’.

  19. An Ordinary Chessplayer

    Just wanted to remind everybody, top-left is not a “choice”. The choices are the other nine. They all have numbers (1-9) on the bottom left of the cover.

  20. An Ordinary Chessplayer :
    Just wanted to remind everybody, top-left is not a “choice”. The choices are the other nine. They all have numbers (1-9) on the bottom left of the cover.

    Hmm yes a bit confusing….I chose book 2 in the Usual Suspects lineup but didn’t see the wee numbers so its actually ‘1 ‘ in bottom left numbering. If Kallia wants a proper straw poll I hope everyone else not making the same mistake.
    PS any more information on the actual books- similar to the Sveshnikov Blitz repertoire and Vol 1 as white and 2 for black? Very much prefer some more club player level books…feeling the new Gelfand books will be over my head

  21. I was going to say that either the letters or the background should be white (so 1, 6 or 7), as I find blue text on an orange background (and the reverse) hard to read.

    But that’s in these tiny images. On an actual printed book it’s probably not the same.

  22. “I was going to say that either the letters or the background should be white (so 1, 6 or 7), as I find blue text on an orange background (and the reverse) hard to read.”

    I agree with this statement!!!

  23. Maybe some colour combinations are also hard to read by people with colour blindness, but I’m obviously not an expert on that.

  24. I actually ran the image through a colour blind simulator and it’s not causing any problems. Some of the deficient views actually give better contrast between the blue and the orange.

  25. Michael Stewart

    Name and cover will be great!!! Interested when these might be available and what will be featured. Gawain always puts out quality work and with the title being Coffeehouse Repertoire e4
    I would think a trappy ,risky , fun , repertoire!!! Made for Blitz play while drinking coffee in a coffee house!!!

  26. I’m also interested in a rough overview of lines. If this means extra options (little overlap) compared to my existing repertoire books against a whole range of replies to 1.e4, that makes them very interesting 🙂

  27. An Ordinary Chessplayer

    They are all good. Slight preference for 1 or 6, then 3,4,5,8, finally 2,7,9. But the most important thing is what’s between the covers.

  28. Hans-Georg Kleinhenz

    Sorry, but I don’t like any of the suggestions. I would perfer if all of the text is in the same color. #5 with “1.e4” and “Coffeehouse Reperoire” also in white would be my preference.

  29. Given what has been chosen for Volume 2, I think you have to go with cover#3 for Volume 1. It is a natural foil, especially when you consider both books will be next to each other on the bookshelf.

  30. michael Stewart

    Look forward to Gawain’s Coffeeshop Repertoire series!!!
    I am still enjoying the two outstanding Dragon books !!!!

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