You know, I started 2022 with such good intentions and yet here we are again at the end of January on a paved road to hell. At least there are some lovely book covers to look at this month. Sigh.
Print Magazine did a piece last year on Amistad Books’ repackaging of Zora Neale Hurston’s work. I’ve featured a couple of the covers here in the past too.
I didn’t blog much this year. It felt strange to be posting about something as trivial as book covers during a deadly pandemic. 2020 has been a tough year. I feel lucky that my family are safe and well, and I have kept my job and my health. I know others have not been so fortunate.
It has been hard.
I haven’t read much and I’ve struggled to keep track of new work. Toronto has been in lockdown for most of 2020. Browsing bookstores hasn’t been possible, and I didn’t spend as much time as usual trawling for covers online. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of covers in this year’s post are featured here for the first time.
Looking back at last year’s post, I was apparently feeling gloomy about the state of things in 2019 too.1 If I remember correctly, I was — in the midst of everything — trying to get through sales conference, wrap up a big project before the holidays, and feeling more than a little stressed. Somehow I still managed to write a little bit about the trends I was seeing. A few things — painterly covers for example — seem to have continued into 2020. Lydian certainly hasn’t gone away. It felt so common, in fact, I stopped keeping track of individual examples. On the other hand, I did see less Avant Garde for which I am quietly grateful (although I’m not sure that’s a popular sentiment).
At The Literary Hub, Emily Temple declared 2020 to be “the year of enormous pink lady faces on book covers.” While at Spine Magazine, Viki Hendy collected together examples of covers with type around the edges. I don’t know that I have a lot to add that. There were a few new meta, books on book covers this year, which is always a delight. And I think perhaps collage might be having a moment too, which is fun. Although we may be overdoing the half-face compositions.
Suppose A Sentence by Brian Dillon; design by Katy Homans; art by John Stezaker (NYRB / September 2020)
The Lightness by Emily Temple; design by Ploy Siripant; art by Beth Hoeckel (William Morrow / June 2020)
There is, of course, a lag. Trends always bleed over from one year to the next. One of this year’s “big books”, Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, which featured a bright and bold cover designed by Vi-An Nguyen, was published in the US on December 31, 2019. A lot of 2020 books have been delayed until 2021. But I wonder how the changes in the way we work and consume brought on by the pandemic — designing in isolation for an audience that is now browsing predominantly online — will change things in the next couple of years. Will we see more experimentation or less? Will there be demand for beautiful tactile objects, or will we more fully embrace digital reading experiences? There’s a lot to ponder…
Anyway, thanks to all the folks who have supported the Casual Op this year and encouraged me to keep it going. I’m sorry that I have not responded to all the emails I have received. I’m going to try to be a bit better with that in future. Hopefully there have been some silver linings for you in 2020, and you can still find some joy in a few good book covers…
Afterland by Lauren Beukes; design by Lauren Wakefield (Penguin / July 2020)
Also designed by Lauren Wakefield:
The Driftwood Girls by Mark Douglas-Home; design by Lauren Wakefield (Penguin / April 2020)
The Honey and the Sting by E. C. Freemantle; design by Lauren Wakefield (Penguin / September 2020)
We Are All the Same in the Dark by Julia Heaberlin; design by Lauren Wakefield (Penguin / August 2020)
Sadly, Adalis unexpectedly passed away in July 2020. I only knew Adalis through her work, but she is such a huge a loss to our community. There is a GoFundMe page if you wish to donate to her family.
Also designed by Adalis Martinez:
losi by Molly Ball; design by Adalis Martinez (Henry Holt & Co / May 2020)
Dominicana by Angie Cruz’ design by Adalis Martinez (Flatiron / August 2020)
Love is an Ex-Country by Randa Jarrar; design by Adalis Martinez (Catapult / February 2021)
You can find a short interview with John in which he discusses his cover for Red Pill at Bear Books, and you can read about his design process for Weather by Jenny Offill at Spine Magazine.
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…
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:
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.
Since 2010, I’ve posted an annual survey of the year in book covers. The post has expanded and developed over the past 7 years, but essentially it is a collection of the covers published in the previous 12 months that I found interesting or noteworthy in some way. As with the previous couple of years, the 2017 list is organized by covers (alphabetical by title), and by designer so that I can show a greater variety of work, and no one designer or studio dominates.
Thank you to everyone who has supported the blog this year, and special thanks to all the designers, art directors, authors, publishers, and fellow design enthusiasts who have helped me with covers and design credits. My sincere apologies to the designers and publishers not on this year’s list and whose covers I have overlooked in the past 12 months.
A post looking back on the YA covers of 2017 is to follow.
They’re not really the same, but the cover of Bolshoi Confidential reminded me of La Boca‘s excellent cover design for The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman from a few years ago…
Bolshoi Confidential by Simon Morrison; design by Jo Walker (Fourth Estate / August 2017)