Books, Design and Culture
I think pretty much every book cover designer I know shared this over the weekend. Every British one at least…
Tom’s latest collection of literary cartoons, Revenge of the Librarians, is out now.
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I am very, very late to this, but Penguin are in the process of reissuing Len Deighton’s thrillers as Modern Classics with new covers by Jim Stoddart inspired by Raymond Hawkey’s original paperback designs.
There are a lot more titles available now (Len Deighton wrote a lot of books!), but you can read more about the first wave of reissues in this Creative Review article from last year, and I’ve posted a few of my favourite covers below.
Following on from my post about Jack Smyth earlier this month, I didn’t realise that the interview with Totally Dublin was part of a short series of Q & As with Irish book cover designers (I am not the brightest).
Anna Morrison and Sarahmay Wilkinson, both of whose work has featured here, and Fiachra McCarthy and Graham Thew, whose work is new to me, also answered the magazine’s questions about their design process.
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Irish designer Jack Smyth, whose work has featured here more than a few times, talked to Totally Dublin about his process for designing book covers:
The best briefs are the ones that give you everything you need but prescribe nothing, and are genuinely trying to achieve something new… When I’m working on fiction, tone is the thing that really interests me. I think trying to capture the tone of the author’s writing can be a really powerful way of communicating with the viewer and, as a result, I often try to avoid leaning too much specific imagery. Of course, this isn’t always the case, but I do always try to keep tone/the author’s voice as the main directive element. I think this is what makes or breaks a book for a reader, not necessarily the location, any element or makeup of characters… I try not to rely on figurative elements too much in the hope that I can draw people in in more subtle ways.
Jack also recently chatted to The Resting Willow blog about book covers, including his design Pure Gold by John Patrick McHugh:
The cover is quite simple – it’s type and colours and textures, but hopefully it captures the tone of John’s voice and the character of the stories. I think these are my favourite types of covers, the ones where there’s almost no figurative elements, but they feel right.
Nice work, Jack. :-)
1 CommentA bit too much going on this month for my liking, but no shortage of great covers…
Car Crash by Lech Blaine; design by Design by Committee (Black Inc. / March 2021)
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner; design by Na Kim (Knopf / April 2021)
This reminded me of Lynn Buckley‘s cover from a while back for On the Noodle Road by Jen Lin-Liu.
Dirt by Bill Buford; design by Gabriele Wilson (Vintage / April 2021)
The Free World by Louis Menand; design by Rodrigo Corral (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / April 2021)
From a Taller Tower by Seamus McGraw; design by Alex Camlin (University of Texas Press / April 2021)
Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian; design by Stephanie Ross; illustration by Sky Goodies (Penguin Press / April 2021)
Namesake by Adrienne Young; design by Kerri Resnick; photograph by Sveltana Belyaeva (Wednesday Books / March 2021)
This is, of course, only half the picture… Fable was published in September and featured in my 2020 YA cover round-up posted in January.
Nancy by Bruno Lloret; design by Gabriele Wilson (Two Lines Press / April 2021)
New York, New York, New York by Thomas Dyja; design by Rodrigo Corral (Simon & Schuster / March 2021)
Two New York covers for Mr. Corral this month.
The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing by Hannah Dawson; design by Olga Kominek (Penguin Classics / March 2021)
Oculta by Maya Motayne; design by Aurora Parlagreco and Jenna Stempel-Lobell; art by Mark Van Leeuwen (Balzer & Bray / April 2021)
The cover of Nocturna, the previous book in the series, was featured in my 2019 YA round-up.
Red Island House by Andrea Lee; design by Tristan Offit (Scribner / March 2021)
Refugee by Emmanuel Mbolela; design by Eva Gabrielsen (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / April 2021)
The Revelations by Erik Hoel; design by Alex Merto (Abrams / April 2021)
The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock by Edward White; design by Jason Ramirez (W. W. Norton / April 2021)
2034 by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis; design by Christopher Brian King (Penguin Press / March 2021)
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin; design Luke Bird (Open Letter / April 2021)
I believe this cover was originally used in the UK last year for the Daunt Books edition, but I missed it. Open Letter are publishing the book in the US and Canada this month, so that’s as good as an excuse as any to post the cover now.
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You can tell that I am not at all on top of things because it has taken me almost a month to post about the return of the Penguin Great Ideas series. Apparently it’s been 10 years since the last set was released, and the 20 new titles include works by Audre Lorde, Sojourner Truth, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, and Martin Luther King among others.
Jim Stoddart continues to art direct the series, and David Pearson has once again designed many of the typographic covers with the help of Catherine Dixon, Phil Baines, and Alistair Hall. There are, needless to say, some absolute belters.
Another rather rushed update this month I’m afraid, which is especially disappointing given how many new books there out at this time of year. I’m sure I’ve missed more than a few great covers here, but hopefully I will catch them before the end of the year…
Carry by Toni Jensen; design by Emily Mahon; illustration by Carmi Grau (Ballantine / September 2020)
The Clerk by Guillermo Saccomanno; design by Alban Fischer (Open Letter Books / September 2020)
The wobbly text here reminded me of Janet Hansen’s cover for Beyond the Sea by Paul Lynch from earlier this year.
Gloria by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; design by Mark Melnick (Theatre Communications Group / August 2020)
Howdunit edited by Martin Edwards; design by Steve Leard (HarperCollins / September 2020)
You can see the rubber stamp Steve used for this design on Instagram.
The Hype Machine by Sinan Aral; design by Steve Leard (HarperCollins / September 2020)
Lobizona by Romina Garber; design by Kerri Resnick; illustation by Daria Hlazatova (Wednesday Books / August 2020)
Ordinary Matter by Laura Elvery; design by Design by Committee (University of Queensland Press / September 2020)
The gradient and colour palette reminded me of the cover for Sensation Machines by Adam Wilson, designed by David Litman, featured in July.
Reading While Black by Esau McCaulley; design by David Fassett (IVP Academic / September 2020)
Red Pill by Hari Kunzru; design by John Gall (Knopf / September 2020)
This cover is bonkers. The cover of the UK edition of Red Pill published by Scribner (also bonkers but in a different, laser eyes, way), was designed by Craig Fraser.
Strange Flowers by Donal Ryan; design by Owen Gent (Doubleday / August 2020)
This is very pretty. Obviously.
These Vengeful Hearts by Katherin Laurin; design Elita Sidiropoulou (Inkyard Press / September 2020)
The Topeka School by Ben Lerner; design by Gray318 (Granta / September 2020)
When My Body Was a Clinched Fist by Enzo Silon Surin; design Zoe Norvell; painting by Carlos Rancaño (Black Lawrence Press / July 2020)
1 CommentA quick update for August…
All Men Want to Know by Nina Bouraoui; design by Holly Ovenden (Viking / August 2020)
Analogia by George Dyson; design by Tom Etherington; illustration by Andy Bridge (Allen Lane / August 2020)
The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi; design by Grace Han (Riverhead / August 2020)
Must I Go by Yiyun Li; design by Gray318 and Richard Bravery (Hamish Hamilton / August 2020)
The Last Great Road Bum by Héctor Tobar; design by Rodrigo Corral; illustration by Matt Buck (MCD / August 2020)
Life of a Klansman; design by Rodrigo Corral (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / August 2020)
I believe this illustration is also by Matt Buck.
Luster by Raven Leilani; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / August 2020)
Moss by Klaus Modick; design by Alban Fischer (Bellevue Literary Press / August 2020)
The New American by Micheline Aharonian Marcom; design Dave Litman (Simon & Schuster / August 2020)
Scabby Queen by Kirstin Innes; design by Jack Smyth (Fourth Estate / July 2020)
Sisters by Daisy Johnson; design by Suzanne Dean; photograph Simon Kerola (Jonathan Cape / August 2020)
The cover of the US edition of Sisters, published by Riverhead this month, was designed by Jaya Miceli. The painting is by Jeremy Olson. (Thank you to the folks on Twitter who helped me with this!)
You Will Never Be Forgotten by Mary South; design by Jamie Keenan (Picador / August
Comments closedA quick update this month. Enjoy…
The Book of Eels by Patrick Svensson; design by Grady McFerrin (Ecco / May 2020)
Broadway for Paul by Vincent Katz; design by Janet Hansen; photograph by Beat Streuli (Knopf / April 2020)
Brown Album by Porochista Khakpour; design by Joan Wong (Vintage / May 2020)
This cover immediately reminded me of Helen Crawford-White’s cover A Half-Baked Idea by Olivia Potts published last year…
And then I thought maybe it was a nod to the cover of The White Album by Joan Didion, published in 1979 (the reissue below uses the original cover), and which Fonts in Use informs me uses the typeface Pistilli Roman. But maybe I am over thinking it…?
I was also reminded of these two recent covers, so maybe it is just a thing…?
A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet; design by David High (W. W. Norton / May 2020)
Lydian for Lydia…
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio; design by Matthew Flute (McClelland & Stewart / April 2020)
I believe this is only available as an ebook, which seems a bit of shame. It would be nice to see in print. The cover does remind me of something else though. I can’t think what exactly. The best I could come up with was Tyler Comrie‘s cover for The Unwanted by Michael Dobbs. But I feel like there is cover that does something similar with a painting as a background? Possibly I’m just imagining it.
Oh and for those of you who are interested, the design team at Penguin Random House Canada have started posting their work to Instagram as one_last_tweak.
Fracture by André Neuman; design by June Park (Farrar Straus & Giroux / May 2020)
Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall; design by Lynn Buckley (Viking / February 2020)
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / May 2020)
Out of the Shadows by Walt Odets; design by Tom Etherington; photograph by Wolfgang Tillmans (Penguin / May 2020)
I love this image. I believe it was used on the cover of the hardcover in the UK too.
Pelosi by Molly Ball; design by Adalis Martinez (Henry Holt & Co / May 2020)
Pew by Catherine Lacey; design by Luke Bird (Granta / May 2020)
Pew and Pelosi make lovely use of white space…
A Registry of My Passage Upon The Earth by Daniel Mason; design by Gregg Kulick (Little, Brown & Co / May 2020)
Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg; design by Linda Huang (Vintage / May 2020)
The cover of the hardcover was designed by Tyler Comrie, with an illustration by Justin Metz
Very Important People by Ashley Mears; design by Amanda Weiss (Princeton University Press / May 2020)
Walking One Step at a Time by Erling Kagge; design by Linda Huang and Oliver Munday (Vintage / April 2020)
This reminded me Gerhard Richter’s blurry landscape paintings.
The hardcover was designed by Jenny Carrow.
Wicked Enchantment by Wanda Coleman; design by Rachel Willey (Black Sparrow Press / April 2020)
It’s been a while since I did a post of David Pearson series design, so I am delighted to share his brilliant new covers for the Penguin UK editions of John le Carré’s George Smiley novels, available this month. The design is a collaboration with Nick Asbury who wrote the copy for the covers (I talked to Nick to ages ago about his Corpoetics book if you’re interested).
The small type is the lovely looking Gill Sans Nova, recently designed by George Ryan for Monotype as a contemporary digital typeface derived from Eric Gill’s original work. The large type is Stephenson Blake Condensed Sans, which is not available digitally and was pieced together from different sources by David himself. I’m sure it was a total pain in the ass to do, but it’s a pleasing contrast and well worth the effort, I think you’ll agree! Jim Stoddart was the clever AD here.
It’s Nice That talks to Jon Gray, AKA Gray318, about his design process and working on covers for high-profile authors like Zadie Smith:
Comments closedJon’s covers are not simply aesthetically pleasing; they’re also suitably thoughtful. He always asks for the most text possible from his clients, in order to kickstart his creative process. “I struggle designing without knowing the mood of the book, it’s character,” he says. “I’m not good at fishing in the dark for concepts and I think my best work comes about when it’s rooted in the text.”
But sometimes, he has to make do with very little. Which is why working with gifted authors like Zadie Smith and wonderful editors like Simon Prosser (Zadie’s editor) is such a blessing: “They will send me a great brief that outlines the plot and sets the mood. There will be visual references and often a strong sense of the area that the book should sit, but with plenty of room to experiment.”
He adds that working with high-profile clients is easier than one might think. “People often imagine that designing covers for big authors is going to be harder somehow. It’s true that marketing and sales departments have a big say in the final cover, but generally, if you can make an author and their editor happy, the rest will follow.”
This has been an exhausting year for oh so, so many reasons, but book covers remained a bright spot for me in 2018.
As always, my end-of-year list collects together the covers that I found interesting or noteworthy in some way or another in the past 12 months. It is organized alphabetically by title and grouped by designer (because that makes sense to me when I’m compiling the list).
In terms of trends, there were a lot of hot orange book covers this year. Stark black, white and red covers were popular for non-fiction. Stars and stripes featured heavily too (I refuse to do a post about this!). Snakes seemed to be a thing!
Typographically, big white sans serifs are still a go-to. And hand-lettering and handwriting are still going strong. But retro typefaces, particularly big serifs with swishy swashes, are making a comeback.
Thanks as always to everyone who has supported the blog this year, especially the folks who have taken the time to help with cover images and design credits. I’m sorry for the many, many the emails I have not replied to this year, and for all the covers, designers, and publishers I have overlooked.
Aetherial Worlds by Tatyana Tolstaya; design by Stephanie Ross (Knopf / March 2018)
Stephanie Ross’s cover for Ruth Bader Ginsberg by Jane Sherron De Hart, published by Knopf in October, also caught my eye this year.
Agrippina: Empress, Exile, Hustler, Whore by Emma Southon; design by Mark Ecob (Unbound / August 2018)
America is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo; design by Gray318 (Atlantic Books / May 2018)
Also designed by Gray318:
(I got to visit Jon in his studio this summer, which was nice.)
Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald; design David Pearson (Penguin / June 2018)
Also designed by David Pearson:
The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch; design by Rafi Romaya; illustration by Florian Schommer (Canongate / January 2018)
Born To Be Posthumous by Mark Dery; design by Jim Tierney; photograph by Richard Corman (Little Brown & Co. / November 2018)
Congratulations to Jim and Sara on the birth of their baby last month!
Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber; design by David Litman (Simon & Schuster / May 2018)
Cherry by Nico Walker; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / August 2018)
Also designed by Janet Hansen:
Circe by Madeline Miller; design by Will Staehle (Little Brown & Co / April 2018)
Also designed by Will Staehle:
Codex 1962 by Sjón; design by Rodrigo Corral (MCD / September 2018)
The cover of the UK edition of Codex 1962 published by Sceptre, which features art by Owen Gent, is also beautiful.
Also designed by Rodrigo Corral Studio:
The Comedown by Rebekah Frumkin; design by Rachel Willey (Henry Holt / April 2018)
Also designed by Rachel Willey:
The Doctor Stories by William Carlos Williams; design by Joan Wong (New Directions / September 2018)
Educated by Tara Westover; illustration by Patrik Svensson (Random House / March 2018)
Probably the most ubiquitous nonfiction book of the year (if not, in the end, the bestselling). Canada and the UK went with photographic covers. This was more memorable I thought.
Evening in Paradise by Lucia Berlin; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / November 2018)
Also designed by Na Kim:
he Fed and Lehman Brothers by Laurence M. Ball; design by Catherine Casalino (University of Cambridge Press / June 2018)
Also designed by Catherine Casalino:
The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer; design by Ben Denzer (Riverhead Books / April 2018)
I also really liked Ben Denzer’s typographic cover for A Short Film About Disappointment by Joshua Mattson (Penguin Press / August 2018).
Feminasty by Erin Gibson; design by Anne Twomey; photograph by Ricky Middlesworth (Grand Central / September 2018)
The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem; design Allison Saltzman; photograph Kate Bellm (Ecco Press / November 2018)
Fox 8 by George Saunders; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury / November 2018)
Gin: Distilled by Gin Foundry; design by James Paul Jones (Ebury Press / October 2018)
Gun Love by Jennifer Clement; design by Michael Morris (Hogarth / March 2018)
Also designed by Michael Morris:
Hippie by Paulo Coelho; design by Tyler Comrie (Knopf / September 2018)
Also designed by Tyler Comrie:
The Hole by José Revueltas; design by John Gall (New Directions / November 2018)
Also designed by John Gall:
(Don’t forget about the new book collecting 10 years of John Gall’s collages!)
The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara; design by Sara Wood (Ecco / February 2018)
You can read about the design of this cover on Literary Hub.
The Infinite Blacktop by Sara Gran; design by Alex Merto (Atria Books / September 2018)
Also designed by Alex Merto:
In the Distance by Hernan Diaz; design by Luke Bird (Daunt Books / June 2018)
I read the US edition of In the Distance (Coffee House Press / 2017) earlier this year. It is quite extraordinary and not what I expected — a western, but not really. I was really pleased that Daunt decided to publish it in the UK.
Also designed by Luke Bird:
The Island That Disappeared by Tom Feiling; design by Marina Drukman (Melville House / March 2018)
The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman; design by Jaya Miceli (Viking / March 2018)
Also designed by Jaya Miceli:
A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne; design by Jo Thomson (Doubleday / August 2018)
Liveblog by Megan Boyle; design by Nicole Caputo (Tyrant Books / September 2018)
Also designed by Nicole Caputo:
The Gunners — a novel about a group of misfit friends reuniting at a funeral — was a favourite in my office this year.
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner; design by Peter Mendelsund; photograph by Nan Goldin (Scribner / May 2018)
Also designed by Peter Mendelsund:
My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci; design by Anna Morrison (Pushkin Press / April 2018)
I thought this was a nice contrast to the cover of the US edition designed by Oliver Munday (Pantheon / April 2017). It’s interesting that only the cat’s ear makes an appearance, and the snake (a boa constrictor in the story I think?) is more prominent.
Also designed by Anna Morrison:
No Country Woman by Zoya Patel; design by Astred Hicks (Hachette Australia / August 2018)
Notes from the Fog by Ben Marcus; design by Jamie Keenan (Granta / September 2018)
Also designed by Jamie Keenan:
On Gravity by A. Zee; design by Jason Alejandro (Princeton University Press / May 2018)
Packing My Library by Alberto Manguel; design by Tom Starr (Yale University Press / March 2018)
The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani; design by Julianna Lee (Penguin / January 2018)
The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor; design by Strick&Williams (Catapult / August 2018)
She Wants It by Jill Soloway; design by Elena Giavaldi (Crown / October 2018)
The Son of Black Thursday by Alejandro Jodorowsky; design by Richard Ljoenes (Restless Books / November 2018)
Richard Ljoenes recently talked about designing covers for Alejandro Jodorowsky — the cover of Where the Bird Sings Best was on my 2016 notable list — with Spine Magazine.
The Stars Now Unclaimed by Drew Williams; design by Jack Smyth (Simon & Schuster / August 2018)
Also designed by Jack Smyth:
A Superior Spectre by Angela Meyer; design by Design by Committee (Ventura / August 2018)
Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott; design by Lauren Wakefield (Hutchinson / June 2018)
Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering; design Donna Cheng (Simon & Schuster / July 2018)
Crossing out is a thing.
Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier; design Dan Mogford (The Bodley Head / June 2018)
Also designed by Dan Mogford:
There There by Tommy Orange; design by Suzanne Dean; art by Bryn Perrott (Harvill Secker / July 2018)
You can read about the design of this cover at Spine Magazine.
Also designed by Suzanne Dean:
This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga; design Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / August 2018)
Also designed by Kimberly Glyder:
Tin Man by Sarah Winman; design by Grace Han ( G.P. Putnam’s Sons / May 2018)
Everyone should read Tin Man btw. It is sad and lovely.
Also designed by Grace Han:
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver; design by Ami Smithson (Faber & Faber / October 2018)
This has rather fancy edges (and endpapers I believe):
The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn; design by Elsie Lyons (William Morrow / January 2018)
I also really liked Elisie Lyons’ glamorously noir cover for Sunburn by Laura Lippman (William Morrow / February 2018).
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