Here are April’s cover selections. Lots of very big type this month!
Black Swans by Eve Babitz; design by Kelly Winton (Counterpoint / April 2017)
This goes rather nicely with last year’s cover for Babitz’s novel Sex and Rage also designed by Kelly:
Brass by Xhenet Aliu; design by design Keith Hayes; photography by Nadine Rovner (Random House / January 2018)
Photographic covers have fallen out of favour for literary fiction of late, but I think this works beautifully.
I also like how it echoes Nathan Putens‘ earlier cover design for Aliu’s short stories Domesticated Wild Things, which makes use of a photograph by Helen Levitt.
The other interesting thing about the photograph selection is how much it reminds me of Keith Hayes own photography. You can follow him on Instagram.
Circe by Madeline Miller; design by Will Staehle (Little Brown & Co / April 2018)
The cover of Miller’s previous book The Song of Achilles was designed by Allison Saltzman:
The very pretty cover of the UK edition of Circe was designed by David Mann at Bloomsbury:
Death in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda; design by Chris Bentham (Viking / April 2018)
Dictator Literature by Daniel Kalder; design by James Paul Jones (Oneworld / April 2018)
The Earth Does Not Get Fat by Julia Prendergast; design by Alissa Dinallo (UWA Publishing / April 2018)
The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer; design by Ben Denzer (Riverheard Books / April 2018)
I like how the design for The Female Persuasion has bands of colour similar to those on Lynn Buckley’s cover design for The Interestings, but uses them in a completely different way…
Hello It Doesn’t Matter by Derrick C. Brown; design by Zoe Norvell (Write Bloody / April 2018)
My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci; design by Anna Morrison (Pushkin Press / April 2018)
Oliver Munday‘s cover for My Cat Yugoslavia (published by Pantheon) featured in my May 2017 post:
Patient X by David Peace; design by Luke Bird (Faber & Faber / April 2018)
And on the subject of David Peace, Steve Panton has designed new covers for the Red Riding Quartet (1974, 1977, 1980 and 1983) published by Serpent’s Tail this month:
A River in Darkness by Masaji Ishikawa; design by Rachel Adam Rogers (AmazonCrossing / January 2018)
Sit How You Want by Robin Richardson; design by David Drummond (Signal Editions / April 2018)
Space Odyssey by Michael Benson; design by Rodrigo Corral (Simon & Schuster / April 2018)
Funnily enough, I was just discussing the prevalence of big and centred white sans serif type on contemporary book covers on Twitter. While it’s common (see the covers of The Female Persuasion and Hello, It Doesn’t Matter above!), it’s also effective when it’s done well. That said I did think that David Pearson — a designer well known for his typographic covers — made a good general point about big type:
The idea that legibility is enhanced by big type is so flawed. Big type surrounded by busyness is often no more legible than small type surrounded by space. Perhaps it is the space that people are scared of. Our idiot eyes might look at the wrong part of the cover.
— David Pearson (@typeasimage) April 11, 2018
In any case, if you are interested in seeing more examples of the ‘big white type’ phenomenon, I started a pinboard a while back.
Waiting for Tomorrow by Nathacha Appanah; design by Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / April 2018)
West by Carys Davies; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Scribner / April 2018)
The Wolf by Leo Carew; design by Patrick Insole (Wildfire / April 2018)