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Today in Micro-Trends: Rotate 90°

downtown owl design paul sahre
design by Paul Sahre (2008)

Turning the picture sideways is not exactly new (the brilliant John Gall and Paul Sahre1 were experimenting with it years ago), but there has been a spate of commercial covers making use of images rotated through ninety degrees in the past couple of years. It seems like a such peculiar thing to have caught on, and yet here we are:

california
California by Edan Lepucki; design Julianna Lee (Little Brown & Co. July 2014)

empty-chair-kulick
The Empty Chair by Bruce Wagner; design by Gregg Kulick (Blue Rider Press / December 2013)

girl in the moonlight design by mumtaz mustafa painting horacio g garcia
The Girl in the Moonlight by Charles Dubow; design by Mumtaz Mustafa; painting by Horacio G. Garcia (William Morrow / May 2015)

green on blue
Green on Blue by Elliot Ackerman; design by Oliver Munday & Jaya Miceli (Scribner / February 2015)

i-saw-a-man
I Saw a Man by Owen Sheers; design by Emily Mahon; photograph by Mike Lambert (Nan A. Talese / June 2015)

Sugar design by M S Corley
Sugar by Deirdre Riordan Hall; design by M. S. Corley (Skyscape / June 2015)

waiting for the apocalypse design kimberly glyder
Waiting for the Apocalypse by Veronica Chater; design by Kimberly Glyder (W. W. Norton / February 2009)

we-are-not-ourselves-design-christopher-lin
We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas; design by Christopher Lin (Simon & Schuster / August 2014)

Notes:
1. thanks for the reminder, Jacob!