Talk:Blue of Noon

Infobox

Ringbang, can we please leave the "front cover" designator out of the infobox? It's safe to assume people can see that the picture is a picture of the front cover of Blue of Noon. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 19:48, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi there. Although it may seem obvious to you (a person who has, presumably, seen this book in real life), it is not quite as obvious to dichromats, and to people who are aware of alternative interpretations. A few descriptive words remove any doubt. Thank you for not also deleting these extra descriptive words from the ALT attribute, since those are accessible to screen readers.

What the image depicts becomes less certain when one considers windowed covers, frontispieces (and other endpapers), slipcases/slipcovers, dust jackets, books with two "fronts", etc. Numerous Wikipedia articles about books, manuscripts, record albums, and other media are illustrated with such images. Windowed covers were relatively common to American paperbacks (especially mass-market) during the time period when Marion Boyars printed this 1988 edition.

A comparison: This image is the front of the slipcase for Rykodisc's 1998 CD re-release of Lanterna, Lanterna's eponymous debut album; this one is the front of the album's booklet. What do you think? – Ringbang (talk) 19:39, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The average reader, seeing that picture, will think it is the front cover, and he or she will be right. The picture shows the book's title, and the name of the book's author, and the kind of illustration that is usually placed on the front covers of books. No one looking at it is likely to suppose that it is, for instance, the book's back cover. I honestly don't think it's necessary to spell out that it is the front cover for the benefit of the tiny minority of people who might hypothetically suppose that it is something else. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 19:46, 10 September 2012 (UTC)