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Tag: Helen Yentus

How a Book is Made

Moon Witch, Spider King cover design by Helen Yentus; illustration by Pablo Gerardo Camacho

The New York Times takes a look at how books are made, following Moon Witch, Spider King, the second novel in the Dark Star trilogy by Marlon James, through its printing process:

The book jacket was manufactured first. The cover of “Moon Witch, Spider King,” printed at Coral Graphics Services in Hicksville, N.Y., was unusually complicated, with a vivid mix of bright colors. James, who used to be a graphic designer, joked that his previous profession — and accompanying opinions — made him “the worst type of person” to consult on the cover.

Most covers are printed using black, cyan, magenta and yellow ink, but two additional colors were used to print this one: Day-Glo green and a special blue. The machine above is loaded with 8,000 sheets of paper at a time, which are then fed through the press. Each section of the machine contains a separate tank of ink, one for each color.

There are some lovely behind the scenes images if that is your kind of thing.

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The Decade in Book Covers

There is a bit of story to this post. The short version is that I started it in 2018 to celebrate 10 years of the blog. When that deadline went whooshing past, I thought I would rework it for the end of 2019 as a look back at the decade. Now in 2020, with the risk of another deadline coming and going before I get it exactly right, I am just going to post this as it is — a collection of covers from the past 10 years1 that I quite like!

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean, design by Will Staehle (Little Brown & Co. / July 2010)

Ethics of Interrogation by Michael Skerker, designed by Isaac Tobin (University of Chicago Press / May 2010)

Filthy English by Peter Silverton, design by Dan Mogford (Portobello / October 2010)

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman, designed by Roberto de Vicq (Random House / 2010)

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, design by David Pearson (Picador / December 2010)

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, designed by Rodrigo Corral Design (Random House / September 2010)

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan; design by Barbara deWilde (Knopf / June 2010)

Amerika by Franz Kafka, design by Peter Mendelsund (Schocken / August 2011)

Adventures in the Orgasmatron by Christopher Turner; design by Marina Drukman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux June 2011)

Fever by Sonia Shah; design by LeeAnn Falciani (Picador / June 2011)

The First Husband by Laura Dave, designed by Jaya Miceli (Penguin / May 2011)

The Information by James Gleick, designed by Peter Mendelsund (Pantheon March 2011)

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi design by Helen Yentus with Jason Booher (Riverhead / September 2011)

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, design by Matt Dorfman (Riverhead Books / May 2011)

After Freud Left edited by John Burnham; designed by Isaac Tobin (University of Chicago Press / May 2012)

The Dubliners by James Joyce; design by Apfel Zet (Penguin / May 2012)

Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck by Eric G. Wilson; design by  Rodrigo Corrall, hand-lettering by Jennifer Carrow, photograph by Simon Lee (FSG March 2012)

The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus; design by Peter Mendelsund (Knopf / January 2012)

Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel by Shalom Auslander; design by John Gall (Riverhead / January 2012)

May We Be Forgiven by A. M. Homes; designed by Alison Forner (Viking / September 2012)

NW by Zadie Smith; design by Gray318 (Hamish Hamilton / September 2012)

First Novel by Nicholas Royle; design by Suzanne Dean; photography Stephen Banks (Cape / February 2013)

The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner; design by Charlotte Strick (Scribner / April 2013)

The Hamlet Doctrine by Simon Critchley & Jamieson Webster; design by David A. Gee (Verso September 2013)

Lionel Asbo by Martin Amis; design by Jamie Keenan (Vintage / May 2013)

Middle C by William Gass; Design by Gabriele Wilson (Knopf / March 2013)

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell; design by David Pearson (Penguin / January 2013)

The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot; design by Jamie Keenan (Liveright Classics / September 2013)

What the Family Needed by Steven Amsterdam; design by Jennifer Heuer (Riverhead / March 2013)

All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu; design by Isabel Urbina Peña (Knopf / March 2014)

The Book of Heaven by Patricia Storace; design by Linda Huang (Pantheon / February 2014)

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

Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson; design by Allison Saltzman; illustration by Bryan Nash Gill (Ecco / June 2014)

Love Me Back by Merritt Tierce; design by Emily Mahon; illustration by Rizon Parein(Doubleday / September 2014)

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka; design by Jamie Keenan (W. W. Norton / February 2014)

My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead; design by Elena Giavaldi (Crown / January 2014)

On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee; design by Helen Yentus; lettering Jason Booher (Riverhead / January 2014)

Your Face in Mine by Jess Row; design by Oliver Munday (Riverhead / August 2014)

The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector; design by Paul Sahre (New Directions / August 2015)

Hotels of North America by Rick Moody; design by Keith Hayes (Little, Brown & Co. / November 2015)

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin; design by Justine Anweiler; photography Jonathan Simpson (Picador UK / September 2015)

Motorcycles I’ve Loved by Lily Brooks-Dalton; design by Rachel Willey (Riverhead / April 2015)

Munich Airport by Greg Baxter; design by Anne Twomey (Twelve Books / January 2015)

One Day in the Life of the English Language by Frank L. Cioffi; design by Chris Ferrante (Princeton University Press / March 2015)

Weathering by Lucy Wood; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury / January 2015)

The Woman Who Read Too Much by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani; design by Anne Jordan & Mitch Goldstein (Stanford University Press / April 2015)

Addlands by Tom Bullough; design by Jenny Grigg (Granta / June 2016)

The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert; design by Jaya Miceli (Scribner / January 2016)

Dialogue by Robert McKee; design by Catherine Casalino (Twelve Books / July 2016)

How Propaganda Works by Jason Stanley; design by Chris Ferrante (Princeton University Press / May 2016)

Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett; design by Keith Hayes (Little, Brown & Co. / May 2016)

Moonglow by Michael Chabon; design by Adalis Martinez (Harper / November 2016)

The Start of Something by Stuart Dybek; design Suzanne Dean; cover art by Marion de Man (Jonathan Cape / November 2016) 

The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel; design by Allison Colpoys (Scribe / August 2016)

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue design by Kimberly Glyder (Little, Brown & Co. / September 2016)

The Age of Perpetual Light by Josh Weil; design by Nick Misani (Grove Press / September 2017)

All We Saw by Anne Michaels; design by Janet Hansen; photograph by Jouke Bos (Knopf / October 2017)

Heating & Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly; design by Alex Merto; photograph by Gregory Reid (W.W. Norton / December 2017)

Jerzy by Jerome Charyn; design by Alban Fischer (Bellevue Literary Press / March 2017)

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood; design by Rachel Willey (Riverhead / May 2017)

A Separation by Katie Kitamura; design by Jaya Miceli (Riverhead / February 2017)

Virgin and Other Stories by April Ayers Lawson; design by James Paul Jones (Granta / January 2017)

We All Love the Beautiful Girls by Joanne Proulx; design by Jennifer Griffiths (Viking / August 2017)

Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber; design by David Litman (Simon & Schuster / May 2018)

Cherry by Nico Walker; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / August 2018)

The Comedown by Rebekah Frumkin; design by Rachel Willey (Henry Holt / April 2018)

Evening in Paradise by Lucia Berlin; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / November 2018)

The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer; design by Ben Denzer (Riverhead Books / April 2018)

Liveblog by Megan Boyle; design by Nicole Caputo (Tyrant Books / September 2018)

There There by Tommy Orange; design by Suzanne Dean; art by Bryn Perrott (Harvill Secker / July 2018)

Aug 9 —  Fog by Kathryn Scanlan; design by Na Kim (Farrar Straus & Giroux MCD / June 2019)

The Dutch House by Ann Patchet; design by Robin Bilardello; painting by Noah Saterstrom (HarperCollins / September 2019)

Lanny by Max Porter; design by Jonny Pelham (Faber & Faber / March 2019)

Malina by Ingeborg Bachman; design by Peter Mendelsund (New Directions / June 2019)

Muscle by Alan Trotter; design by Gray318 (Faber & Faber / February 2019)

Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / August 2019)

The Unwanted by Michael Dobbs; design by Tyler Comrie (Knopf / April 2019)

2 Comments

Book Covers of Note March 2016

Much later than usual, here are this month’s book cover selections…

Cambodia Noir design Alex Merto
Cambodia Noir by Nick Seeley; design by Alex Merto (Simon & Schuster / March 2016)

Heads design by Alex Camlin
Heads by Jesse Jarnow; design by Alex Camlin (Da Capo / March 2016)

House Full of Daughters design Cressida Bell
A House Full of Daughters by Juliet Nicolson; design by Cressida Bell (Chatto & Windus / March 2016)

How To Slowly Kill Yourself design Greg Heinimann
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury / March 2016)

Insignifica design Alban Fischer
Insignificana by Dolan Morgan; design by Alban Fischer (CCM / March 2016)

Knockout design by Matt Dorfman
Knockout by John Jodzio; design by Matt Dorfman (Soft Skull / March 2016)

Latecomer design Doublenaut
The Latecomer by Dimitri Verhulst; design Ross Proulx / Doublenaut (Portobello Books / March 2016)

Lonely City
The Lonely City by Olivia Laing; design Henry Sene Yee; photograph by Jerome Liebling (Picador USA / March 2016)

Love Like Salt design Nico Taylor image Sarah Gillespie
Love Like Salt by Helen Stevenson; design by Nico Talyor; image by Sarah Gillespie (Virago / March 2016)

lover design Neil Lang
Lover by Anna Raverat; design by Neil Lang (Picador / March 2016)

Lust and Wonder cover design Olga Grlic
Lust & Wonder by Augusten Burroughs; design by Olga Grlic (St. Martin’s Press / March 2016)

Paper Tigers design Alban Fischer
Paper Tigers by Damien Angelica Walters; design by Alban Fischer (Dark House Press / February 2016)

Mademoiselle S design Gabriele Wilson
The Passion of Mademoiselle S. edited by Jean-Yves Berthault; design Gabriele Wilson (Spiegel & Grau / February 2016)

Seeing Red design by Anna Zylicz
Seeing Red by Lina Meruane; design by Anna Zylicz (Deep Vellum / March 2016)

Socialist Optimism design Emma J Hardy
Socialist Optimism by Paul Auerbach; design by Emma J. Hardy (Palgrave / March 2016)

Sudden Death design Rachel Willey
Sudden Death by Álvaro Enrigue; design by Rachel Willey (Riverhead / March 2016)

Trees design David Mann
The Trees by Ali Shaw; design by David Mann (Bloomsbury / March 2016)

Two Family House design Sara Wood
The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman; design by Sara Wood (St. Martin’s Press / March 2016)

Weve Already Gone this Far design Lucy Kim
We’ve Already Gone This Far by Patrick Dacey; design by Lucy Kim (Henry Holt / March 2016)

What is Yours design Helen Yentus
What Is Not Your Is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi; design by Helen Yentus (Riverhead / March 2016)

When Everything Feels Like the Movies design Ceara Elliot lettering Martina Flor
When Everything Feels Like the Movies by Raziel Reid; design Ceara Elliot; lettering and illustration Martina Flor (Atom / February 2016)

XX design Sara Wood
XX: Poems for the Twentieth Century by Campbell McGrath; design Sara Wood (Ecco / March 2016)

2 Comments

52 Women Book Cover Designers

If you follow the Casual Optimist on Twitter, you will know that a couple of weeks ago design studio Aishima asked people to tweet about inspiring women graphic designers using the hashtag #celebratewomen. As today is International Women’s Day, I thought I would follow up my #celebratewomen tweets with a visual list of 52 inspiring women book cover designers (one for every week of the year!) — from influential veterans whose work I’ve admired for years to junior designers that have just appeared on my radar.

The names of all 52 designers can be found at the end of the post. With a few more hours in a day the list could easily have been many times longer, so apologies to anyone I have overlooked. Please let me know who you would’ve included in the comments or on Twitter.

Don't Let's Go To the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller; design by Justine Anweiler (Picador / January 2015)

Justine Anweiler


Jane Eyre Clothbound design Coralie Bickford Smith

Coralie Bickford-Smith


Aftermath design Kelly Blair

Kelly Blair


The Wall design Gabrielle Bordwin photograph John Gay

Gabrielle Bordwin


forever design Lizzy Bromley

Lizzy Bromley


On-the-Noodle-Road

Lynn Buckley


Curious design Nicole Caputo

Nicole Caputo


friendship_gould

Jennifer Carrow


m train design carol devine carson

Carol Devine Carson


Girl-Who-Was-Saturday-Night

Catherine Casalino


Cat and Fiddle design Allison Colpoys

Allison Colpoys


Stoner (hardback)

Julia Connolly


Holloway

Eleanor Crow


100-sideways-miles-9781442444959_hr

Lucy Ruth Cummins


First Novel design Suzanne Dean photograph Stephen Banks

Suzanne Dean


Milk

Barbara deWilde


tender-is-the-night

Sinem Erkas


Madness So Discreet design Erin Fitzsimmons

Erin Fitzsimmons


Dust to Dust design Alison Forner

Alison Forner


Seating Arrangements design Elena Giavaldi

Elena Giavaldi


barefoot queen design Kimberly Glyder

Kimberly Glyder


Lopsided design by Carin Goldberg

Carin Goldberg


luminaries

Jenny Grigg


Voices in the Night by Steven Millhauser; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / April 2015)

Janet Hansen


What the Family Needed

Jennifer Heuer


follow me design Karen Horton

Karen Horton


book-of-heaven

Linda Huang


specter-of-capital

Anne Jordan


This Will Be Difficult to Explain design Chin Yee Lai

Chin-Yee Lai


Silvered Heart TBK.indd

Yeti Lambregts


978-0-385-53807-7

Emily Mahon


first husband

Jaya Miceli


Sixty design by Terri Nimmo

Terri Nimmo


Unabrow by Una Lamarche; design by Zoe Norvell (Plume / March 2015)

Zoe Norvell


Welcome to the Circus design Natalie Olsen

Natalie Olsen


Untitled-1

Lauren Panepinto


A Good Book design Ingrid Paulson

Ingrid Paulson


all-our-names

Isabel Urbina Peña


Redeployment design Rafi Romaya

Rafi Romaya


Canada design by Allison Saltzman

Allison Saltzman


Year I Met You design Heike Schussler

Heike Schüssler


silence

Clare Skeats


A Year of Marvellous Ways design by Amy Smithson

Ami Smithson / Cabin


flamethrowers design Charlotte Strick

Charlotte Strick


Toronto Cooks design Jess Sullivan

Jess Sullivan


Longitude design Jo Walker

Jo Walker


Americanah

Abby Weintraub


Living on Paper design by Amanda Weiss

Amanda Weiss


Barbara the Slut by Lauren Holmes; design by Rachel Willey (Riverhead / August 2015)

Rachel Willey


middle-c_

Gabriele Wilson


Design Megan Wilson, photograph Saul Leiter

Megan Wilson


All the Birds design by Joan Wong

Joan Wong


Summerlong design Sara Wood

Sara Wood


MythOfSis

Helen Yentus


  1. Justine Anweiler
  2. Coralie Bickford-Smith
  3. Kelly Blair
  4. Gabrielle Bordwin
  5. Lizzy Bromley
  6. Lynn Buckley
  7. Nicole Caputo
  8. Jennifer Carrow
  9. Carol Devine Carson
  10. Catherine Casalino
  11. Allison Colpoys
  12. Eleanor Crow
  13. Lucy Ruth Cummins
  14. Suzanne Dean
  15. Barbara deWilde
  16. Sinem Erkas
  17. Erin Fitzsimmons
  18. Alison Forner
  19. Elena Giavaldi
  20. Kimberly Glyder
  21. Carin Goldberg
  22. Jenny Grigg
  23. Janet Hansen
  24. Jennifer Heuer
  25. Karen Horton
  26. Linda Huang
  27. Anne Jordan
  28. Chin-Yee Lai
  29. Yeti Lambregts
  30. Emily Mahon
  31. Jaya Miceli
  32. Terri Nimmo
  33. Zoe Norvell
  34. Natalie Olsen
  35. Lauren Panepinto
  36. Ingrid Paulson
  37. Isabel Urbina Peña
  38. Rafi Romaya
  39. Allison Saltzman
  40. Heike Schüssler
  41. Clare Skeats
  42. Ami Smithson
  43. Charlotte Strick
  44. Jess Sullivan
  45. Jo Walker
  46. Abby Weintraub
  47. Rachel Willey
  48. Gabriele Wilson
  49. Megan Wilson
  50. Joan Wong
  51. Sara Wood
  52. Helen Yentus
22 Comments

50 Covers for 2014

Book designers, you do amazing work. Thank you. I am especially grateful to all the designers and art directors (not to mention publicists and other publishing folk) who have shared their wisdom, provided me with images, and helped me with design credits this year — these posts would not be possible without you. I also want thank my fellow book design bloggers, notably Book Covrs, Booketing, and Caustic Cover Critic, for their sterling work, and my local bookstores, TypeBook City on the Danforth, Ben McNally Books, and Indigo Bay & Bloor, for letting me browse their shelves.

Here are my covers of 2014:

all-my-puny-sorrows
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews; design by Sunra Thompson (McSweeney’s / November 2014)


All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu; design by Isabel Urbina Peña (Knopf / March 2014)

bark
Bark by Lorrie Moore; design by Carol Devine Carson; photography by Josef Sudek (Knopf / February 2014)


The Book of Heaven by Patricia Storace; design by Linda Huang (Pantheon / February 2014)

book-of-strange-new-things

The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber; art direction and design Rafi Romaya;  illustration Yehrin Tong (Canongate / October 2014)

9781476747231
The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt; design by Christopher Lin (Simon & Schuster / March 2014)


Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall by Will Chancellor; design by Richard Ljoenes (HarperCollins / July 2014)


Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes; design by Keith Hayes (Mulholland Books / September 2014)

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

chop-chop
Chop Chop by Simon Wroe; design by Ben Wiseman (Penguin / April 2014)

clothes-music-boys
Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys by Viv Albertine; design by Luke Bird (Faber & Faber / May 2014)


The Corpse Exhibition by Hassan Blasim; design by Jason Ramirez (Penguin / February 2014)

dept-of-speculation-gray-318
Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill; design by Gray318 (Granta / March 2014)

Dog-Ear
Dog Ear by Jim Johnstone; design by David Drummond (Signal Editions / May 2014)


The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison; design by Tom Darracott (Granta / June 2014)

enlightenment
Enlightenment 2.0 by Joseph Heath; design by David A. Gee (HarperCollins / April  2014)


Forensic Songs by Mike McCormack; design by Jason Booher (SOHO / July 2014)

fourth-july-creek
Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson; design by Allison Saltzman; illustration by Bryan Nash Gill (Ecco / June 2014)


Friendship by Emily Gould; design by Jennifer Carrow (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / July 2014)

fullblood-arabian
Fullblood Arabian by Osama Alomar; design by Paul Sahre (New Directions / March 2014)

A-Girl-is-a-Half-formed-Thing
A Girl is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride; design by Donna Payne (Faber & Faber / April 2014)


Happy are the Happy by Yesmina Reza; design by Suzanne Dean (Harvill Secker / July 2014)
herodotus
The Histories by Herodotus, translated by Tom Holland; design by Coralie Bickford-Smith (Penguin Classics / September 2014)

intervals-in-cinema
The Intervals of Cinema by Jacques Rancière; design by Jessica Svendsen (Verso / October 2014)


Karate Chop by Dorthe Nors; design by Carol Hayes (Graywolf February 2014)

leaving-the-sea
Leaving the Sea by Ben Marcus; design by Peter Mendelsund (Knopf / January 2014)

And here it is side by side with 2012’s The Flame Alphabet:


The Liar’s Wife by Mary Gordon; design by Linda Huang (Pantheon / August 2014)

978-0-385-53807-7
Love Me Back by Merritt Tierce; design by Emily Mahon; illustration by Rizon Parein (Doubleday / September 2014)

9781447259374
The Man Who Couldn’t Stop; design by Katie Tooke (Picador / April 2014)


Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka; design by Jamie Keenan (W. W. Norton / February 2014)


My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead; design by Elena Giavaldi (Crown / January 2014)

napoleon

Napoleon the Great by Andrew Roberts; design by Isabelle De Cat (Penguin / October 2014)

on-such-a-full-sea
On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee; design by Helen Yentus; lettering Jason Booher (Riverhead / January 2014)

our-poison-horse
Our Poison Horse by Derrick Brown; design by Jennifer Heuer (Write Bloody / October 2014)


Radio Benjamin edited by Lecia Rosenthal; design by Isaac Tobin (Verso / October 2014)

russians
Russians by Gregory Feifer; design by Catherine Casalino (Twelve Books / February 2014)

scarborough
The Scarborough by Michael Lista; design by David Drummond (Véhicule Press / September 2014)


The Secret World of Oil by Ken Silverstein; design by Matt Dorfman (Verso / May 2014)

9780307908483
Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball; design by Peter Mendelsund (Pantheon / January 2014)

silent-history
The Silent History by Eli Horowitz, Kevin Moffett, Matthew Derby; design by Oliver Munday (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / June 2014)

song-for-approaching
Song for an Approaching Storm by Peter Fröberg Idling; design by David Pearson (Pushkin Press / March 2014)


Specter of Capital by Joseph Vogl; design by Anne Jordan (Stamford University Press / October 2014)

9780374270650
Strange Bodies by Marcel Theroux; design by Nayon Cho; illustration by Mark Stutzman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / February 2014)


Ugly Girls by Lindsay Hunter; design by Charlotte Strick; photograph by Natalie Dirks (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / November 2014)

9781447229759
Vanishing by Gerard Woodward; design by Jamie Keenan (Picador UK / March 2014)


Wittgenstein Jr by Lars Iyers; design by Christopher Brian King (Melville House / September 2014)


Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle; design by Timothy Goodman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / September 2014)

Area-X
9780374261177
Area X by Jeff VanderMeer; design by Rodrigo Corral (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / November 2014)

young-skins
young-skins-full
Young Skins: Stories by Colin Barrett; design by James Paul Jones (Jonathan Cape / March 2014)


Your Face in Mine by Jess Row; design by Oliver Munday (Riverhead / August 2014)

Thanks all.

20 Comments

Beasts! Reptiles and Amphibians

As a Friday follow-up to Tuesday’s post on wild beasts, here’s a look at reptiles and amphibians on book covers:

alligator-bill-douglas

Alligator by Lisa Moore; design by Bill Douglas (House of Anansi Press / September 2005)

andalucian-friend
The Andalucian Friend by Alexander Söderberg; design by Ben Wiseman (Crown / May 2014)

Ashland Final
Ashland by Gil Adamson; design by David Gee (ECW / April 2011)

bitter-drink
Bitter Drink by F. G. Haghenbeck; design by David Drummond (Amazon / July 2012)


Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi; design by Helen Yentus (Riverhead / March 2014)

CanneyRow800
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck; design by Kathryn MacNaughton (Penguin / January 2012)

city-of-snakes
City of Snakes by Darren Shan; design by Catherine Casalino ( Grand Central / June 2011)

Cold Blood
Cold Blood by Richard Kerridge; design by James Paul Jones (Chatto & Windus / May 2014)

Crime
Crime by Irvine Welsh; design by Matt Broughton (Vintage / August 2009)


Fatal Eggs by Mikhail Bulgakov; design by Nathan Burton (Alma Classics / July 2014)

9780312425579
The Devil’s Horn by Michael Segell; design by Henry Sene Yee (Picador / August 2006)

frog-music
Frog Music by Emma Donoghue; design by Keith Hayes (Little Brown & C0. / April 2014)

good-angel
The Good Angel of Death by Andrey Kurkov; illustration by Pablo Amargo (Vintage / August 2010)

hard-light
The Hard Light of Day by Rod Moss; design by Sandy Cull / gogoGingko (University of Queensland Press / October 2011)

heaven
The Heaven of Animals by James Poissant; design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich (Simon & Schuster / March 2014)

david-high
In the Valley of the Kings by Terrence Holt; design by David High (W. W. Norton / September 2009)

Buchanan-Smith LLC
Life Ascending by Nick Lane; design by Buchanan-Smith LLC (W. W. Norton / June 2009)

mad-hope-ingrid-paulson
Mad Hope by Heather Birrell; design by Ingrid Paulson (Coach House Books  / April 2012)

NO1LADIES
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith; design by Mark Ecob (Abacus / June 2003)

9781770893740_HR
No Pain Like This Body by Harold Sonny Ladoo; design by Brian Morgan; illustration Jillian Tamaki (Anansi / September 2013)

paradise
Paradise Lost by John Milton;  design by Emily Mahon; illustration by Silja Goetz (Modern Library / November 2008)

dead-frog-tierney
Poking a Dead Frog by Mike Sacks; design by Jim Tierney (Penguin / June 2014)

sixth-extinction
The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert; design by David Mann (Bloomsbury / February 2014)

snake-charmer
The Snake Charmer by Jamie James; design by Paul Buckley (Hyperion / July 2008)


The String Diaries by Stephen Lloyd Jones; design by Keith Hayes (Mulholland Books / July 2014)

9780099555834
Swamplandia by Karen Russell; illustration by Stacey Rozich; art direction James Paul Jones (Vintage / March 2012)

Birds and Bugs are next!

4 Comments

50 Books / 50 Covers 2013 Winners

5050-2013

If you’re an American book designer you probably know already that the winners of the 2013 Fifty Books / Fifty Covers show were announced yesterday.

Organized by Design Observer in association with AIGA and Designers & Books,  50/50, which recognizes the best work in contemporary book and book cover design, dates back to 1922, and is the oldest continuously operating graphic design competition in the United States. It is what you might call a ‘big deal.’

Of course, you can always quibble with lists like this — there are a some covers from last year that I loved that aren’t winners. But it’s wonderful to see book designers get some deserved recognition, and there are some great covers on the list that I overlooked.

Here are a few of my favourite 50 Covers winners that weren’t on my own 2013 list (nor in my postscript):

9780199811809-Thomas Ng
The Aesthetic Brain by Anjan Chatterjee; design by Thomas Ng (Oxford University Press)

no_one_is_here_gray_318
No One is Here Except All of Us by Romana Ausubel; design by Gray318 (Riverhead)

9780226078991-tobin
Personae by Sergio De La Pava; design by Isaac Tobin (University of Chicago Press)

shady-jason-booher
Shady Characters by Keith Houston; design by Jason Booher ((W. W. Norton & Company)

this-yentus-booher
This and Other Plays by Melissa Gibson; design by Helen Yentus and Jason Booher (Theatre Communications Group)

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Book Cover Design is a Fine Art

globe-book-covers

It used to be enough for a book to idly stand out in a bookstore. Nowadays, however, new books must jostle for attention with everything. Thousands of distractions are just a click away. Is it any wonder that book-cover design is more important than ever?

In today’s Globe and Mail, I talks about recent trends in book cover design and pick a few of my favourite covers from the year so far. If you live in Canada you can find a lovely-looking print version of the article in the Arts pages.

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Book Covers of Note July 2014

As well posting great cover designs for books released in July, I’ve taken this month’s round-up as an opportunity to catch up on a few I missed earlier this year. Enjoy!

adam
Adam by Ariel Schrag; design by Christopher Moisan (Mariner June 2014)

american-blonde
American Blonde by Jennifer Niven; design by Sara Wood (Plume July 2014)

9780307594792
The Arsonist by Sue Miller; design by Gabriele Wilson (Knopf June 2014)

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

cartwheel
Cartwheel by Jennifer Dubois; design Eileen Carey / photograph by Kniel Synnatzschke (Random House May 2014)

cubed
Cubed by Nikil Saval; design by Oliver Munday (Doubleday April 2014)

fourth-july-creek
Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson; design by Allison Saltzman, cover art Bryan Nash Gill (Ecco June 2014)

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Friendship by Emily Gould; design by Jennifer Carrow (FSG July 2014)

gottland-300dpi
Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia by Mariusz Szczygiel; design by Christopher King (Melville House May 2014)

how-to-be-danish
How To Be Danish by Patrick Kingsley; design by Andrew Smith (Atria February 2014)

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A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain by Adrianne Harun; design by Kristen Haff (Penguin February 2014)

the-martian
The Martian by Andy Weir; design by Eric White (Crown February 2014)

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Nobody is Ever Missing by Catherine Lacey; design by Charlotte Strick; illustration by Patrick Leger (FSG Originals, July 2014)

no-country
No Country by Kalyan Ray; design by Christopher Lin (Simon & Schuster June 2014)

My Fellow Skin

My Fellow Skin / Shutterspeed / Marcel by Erwin Mortier; design by David Pearson (Pushkin Press July 2014)

night film
Night Film by Marisha Pessl; design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant (Random House July 2014)

out-of-time
Out of Time by Lynne Segal; design by David A. Gee (Verso July 2014)

panic
Panic in a Suitcase by Yelena Akhtiorskaya; design by Helen YentusPhotograph by Emine Ziyatdinova (Riverhead July 2014)

string

The String Diaries by Stephen Lloyd Jones; design by Keith Hayes (Mulholland Books July 2014)

dueling-neurosurgeons
The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons by Sam Kean; design by Will Staehle (Little, Brown & Co. May 2014)

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Triangles Are My Favourite Shape

Let’s tessellate…

I’ve been thinking a lot about triangle patterns recently (that’s just how my mind works — don’t ask) and collecting together a few book covers (and related matter) that use them in their designs. I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve come across here…

MythOfSis
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus; design by Helen Yentus (Vintage Books 2007) harvard-review-35-full

Harvard Review #35 (Fall 2008), #39 (Fall 2010) and #41 (Winter 2011); design by Alex Camlin

cuttingedges cutting-edges-gestalten

cutting-edges-jelle-martens
Cutting Edges: Contemporary Collage edited by Robert Klanten, Hendrik Hellige and J. Gallagher (Gestalten February 2011) — collages by Jelle Martens

traveller-of-the-century
Traveller of the Century by Andrés Neuman; design by Clare Skeats (Pushkin Press, January 2013)

LaBoîteAuxLettresDuCimetière_1000

LaSolutionEsquimauAW

la-troisieme-balle

La Boîte aux lettres du cimetière by Serge Pey (Éditions Zulma February 2014)

Notre quelque part by Nii Ayikwei Parkes (Éditions Zulma February 2014)

Dictionnaire du parfait cynique by Roland Jaccard (Éditions Zulma March 2007)

La Troisième Balle by Leo Parutz (Éditions Zulma October 2014)

Design by David Pearson

(I also rather like the cover for Le Goût âpre des kakis by Zoyâ Pirzâd as well)

sounds good
Sounds Good 101 Poems to be Heard edited by Christopher Reid; design by Eleanor Crow (Faber & Faber, March 2012)

Herbert Scarf’s Contributions to Economics, Game Theory and Operations Research Volumes 1-3 by Edited by Zaifu Yang (Palgrave Macmillan, September 2013)

The Here And Now
The Here and Now by Ann Brashares; design by Natalie Sousa (Delacorte Press, April 2014)

cataract-city
Cataract City by Craig Davidson; design by Kapo Ng (Graywolf, July 2014)


The Last Days by Laurent Seksik; design by David Pearson (Pushkin Press, Nov 2013)

 

juxtapoz-psychedelic
Juxtapoz Psychedelic by Hannah Stouffer (Gingko Press February 2014)

( Unfortunately I’m not sure the image quite does justice to this cover…

Update:

A excellent addition to the list from UK designer Stuart Bache:

astonish-me

Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead; design by Stuart Bache (Blue Door May 2014)

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Recent Covers of Note February 2014 Edition

It’s almost March and I’ve just realised that I haven’t posted very many book covers this year. To make up for this lapse, here are ten of my favourite covers from the last few months:

all-our-names
All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu; design by Isabel Urbina Peña

book-of-heaven
The Book of Heaven by Patricia Storace; design by Linda Huang

corpse-exhibition
The Corpse Exhibition by Hassan Blasim; design by Jason Ramirez

the-erl-king
The Erl King by Michel Tournier; design by Leo Nickolls

my-life-middlemarch
My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead; design by Elena Giavaldi

the-news
The News: A User’s Manual by Alain de Botton; design by Matt Dorfman

such-a-full-sea
On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee; design by Helen Yentus, lettering Jason Booher

half-world
Half World by Scott O’Connor; design by Christopher Lin

silence-once-begun
Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball; design by Peter Mendelsund

visionist
The Visionist by Rachel Urquhart; design by Keith Hayes

If you’d like to see more book covers, you can follow my Pinterest board or check out the ‘Book Design’ category at The Accidental Optimist.

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Helen Yentus 3D Slipcase


Helen Yentus, the art director of Riverhead Books, designed two covers for the recently published On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee. The regular hardcover — which is beautiful in itself (see below) — has a hand-lettered jacket. The second, for a limited edition of the novel, comes in a white slipcase made on a 3D printer. In this video, Helen talks about the 3D printed slipcase, designed in collaboration with the MakerBot Studio:


This isn’t the first time Helen’s worked with MakerBot. In 2011 she used the 3D printer to create the letters on the cover of The Innovator’s Cookbook by Steven Johnson:

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