Oof, I am very late with this month’s covers post. I think it’s quite a good one though as these things go…?
Categorically Famous by Guy Davidson; design by Michel Vrana (Stanford University Press / June 2019)
Swishy retro fonts are definitely a ‘thing’ now. In this instance I believe the font is Cabernet JF — an unofficial revival of Benguiat Caslon — which has been mentioned here before. The sans is Futura of course. I rather rashly went on record not so long ago saying Futura is a little overused on university press covers (much to the chagrin of Robert Bringhurst!), but I think it works here.
Come Closer and Listen by Charles Simic; design by Allison Saltzman; art by Jessica Brilli (Ecco / July 2019)
Cruising by Alex Espinoza; design by Robert Bieselen (Unnamed Press / June 2019)
More swishy-swishiness. The positioning of the first “i” in “Cruising” does some work here.
Cults by Herb Lester Associates; design and illustration Brian Rau (Herb Lester Associates / July 2019)
The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg; design by Pablo Delcan (New Directions / July 2019)
Pablo also designed the cover of Ginzburg’s Happiness, as Such, also out this month from New Directions.
Expectation by Anna Hope; design by Jo Thomson (Doubleday / July 2019)
Feel Free by Nick Laird; design by Yang Kim (W.W. Norton / July 2019)
The Fell by Robert Jenkins; design by Jason Anscomb (RedDoor Press / July 2019)
The Great American Cheese War by Paul Flower; design by Dan Mogford (Farrago / June 2019)
(There is probably a post to be had of covers that feature ‘guns’ made of other things. Although I’m struggling to think of any other examples off the top of my head, so maybe I’m thinking of artworks and/or magazine covers? Or just imagining it?)
A Half-Baked Idea by Olivia Potts; design by Helen Crawford-White (Fig Tree / July 2019)
Harbart by Nabarun Bhattacharya; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / June 2019)
Maggie Brown & Others by Peter Orner; design by Lucy Kim (Little, Brown & Co. / July 2019)
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead; design by Oliver Munday (Doubleday / July 2019)
Novacene by James Lovelock; design by Tom Etherington (Allen Lane / July 2019)
Radical Ritual by Neil Shister; design by Sarah Brody (Counterpoint / July 2019)
Say Say Say by Lila Savage; design by Jennifer Carrow (Knopf / July 2019)
The Travelers by Regina Porter; design by Suzanne Dean (Jonathan Cape / July 2019)
The cover of the US edition published by Hogarth last month was designed by Michael Morris.
I would have have a hard time telling you which country these covers came from if I didn’t already know. Using the US spelling “Travelers” on the UK cover confuses the issue, but I don’t think either cover looks particularly American, which is kind of interesting. Michael Morris recently discussed his version with Spine.
Turbulence by David Szalay; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Scribner / July 2019)
The cover of the UK edition of Turbulence, published at the end of last year by Jonathan Cape, reminded me of Anne Twomey’s 2015 cover for Munich Airport by Greg Baxter…
Interestingly, the barcode on the front of the UK edition actually works. You can read an interview from earlier this year with designer Rosie Palmer about the UK cover over at Spine.
Very Nice by Marcy Dermansky; design by Janet Hansen; ice rendered by Justin Metz (Knopf / July 2019)
The Weil Conjectures by Karen Olsson; design by Emma Ewbank (Bloomsbury / July 2019)
The cover of the US edition published by FSG this month was designed by Alison Forner and Thomas Colligan, with art by Jessica Halonen.
We Went to the Woods by Caite Dolan-Leach; design by Jaya Miceli (Random House / July 2019)
The overlayed/connected line-drawn faces in the Turbulence cover art is great symbolism. In another July 2019 release, The Returns by Philip Salom (Transit Lounge Publishing) Josh Durham/Design by Committee has taken this idea to another level with wonderful effect >> http://bookloverbookreviews.com/2019/07/the-returns-by-philip-salom-review-author-post-giveaway.html