I was immediately reminded of the cover of Department of Speculation by Jenny Offill, also designed designed by Linda Huang:
The cover of the UK paperback of Weather, published by Granta this month, was designed by Jo Walker. She wrote about her design process for Spine Magazine.
Interesting that both paperback designs are so different from each other and their respective hardcovers (which were quite different to each other too)…
My first post of 2021 is a look back at some of the young adult covers that caught my eye last year. I’m sure that I have missed a lot of great work (waves hands at everything that went on in 2020), so apologies if your favourites aren’t here. Happy New Year!
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.
As it is almost the end of October this is going to be my last monthly round-up for 2020. I will endeavour to put together a post on the book covers of year soon, but I am sure a lot of great work skimmed under my radar, so designers please drop me a line if I have missed a cover (or two!) you really loved working on (the book has to have been published this year), especially if it was for an independent or university press. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this month’s selections.
They’re really not all that alike (it’s funny how memory constantly plays this trick on me), but the colour palette and the typographic approach of Alex’s cover reminded me Luke Bird’s 2017 cover for Vivek Shanbhag’s Ghachar Ghochar:
Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag; design by Luke Bird (Faber & Faber / April 2017)
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…
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.
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!)
Maybe someone has done this before and I didn’t notice (or, more likely forgotten), but it’s great to see a photograph from the EPA’s remarkable DOCUMERICA Project — available through the US National Archives on Flickr — on a book cover.
Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld; design by Jo Thomson (Doubleday / July 2020)
It’s interesting that the US cover of Rodham is essentially the same as the UK one. I would’ve thought for sure that they would take different approaches.
The cover of the UK edition, which will not be published until 2021(!), was designed by Craig Fraser. It has a very vintage Faber feel… maybe it’s just the type?
This reminded me of the cover of the similarly themed American Manifesto by Bob Garfield, designed by Richard Ljoenes and published earlier this year by Counterpoint….
This cover immediately reminded me of Helen Crawford-White’s cover A Half-Baked Ideaby 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…?
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)
Hey. Here are the book covers that have caught my eye online this month. I hope that they bring a little joy in this very grim time.
If you have the means to buy books at the moment (and I appreciate that is not going to be the case for everyone), please consider supporting your local bookstore. I know a lot of stores are taking orders by email even if they are not answering the phone, and many are offering local delivery if curbside pick-up is not currently an option. The situation seems to be changing daily, so if a store wasn’t accepting orders yesterday, they might be today. We are all figuring this out on the fly.
If you are in the US and don’t have access to a local bookstore, there is Bookshop.org who are trying to provide some financial support to independents. If there are similar initiatives elsewhere, let me know — I’m happy to share the link.
Afterlife by Julia Alvarez; design by Jaya Miceli (Algonquin Books / April 2020)
I wonder where the eye — particularly the combination of the colour red and the eye — as a symbol of Orwell and Nineteen Eighty-Four originated? Does it go back to the 1960s and the Penguin paperback designed by Germano Facetti?
I understand that the eye is a short-hand for the surveillance state. But it is almost as if that is now considered the only element of the book worth visualizing (David Pearson’s cover is in an interesting exception in that it cleverly focuses on censorship rather than surveillance).
I haven’t read Nineteen Eighty-Four in years, but my memory is that the infamous “Big Brother is Watching You” poster is a face whose eyes seem to follow you when you move — something I think Matt’s cover above captures quite nicely — not an all-seeing, omniscient eye. The first time I read the novel, I imagined Big Brother looked something like Lord Kitchener / Uncle Sam in the recruitment posters. I was more traumatized by Room 101 to be honest… Has anyone put rats on the cover of Nineteen Eighty-Four?
I actually read Godshot in manuscript form last year and liked it a lot. It is set in drought-stricken California, but I had Ry Cooder’s soundtrack to Paris, Texas playing in my head the whole time I was reading it.
I also wanted to give a quick shout-out to Nicole who was diagnosed with breast cancer at the end of last year and bravely shared her story on social media recently. Stay safe, and get well soon, Nicole. :-)
Griefby Svend Brinkmann; design by David A. Gee (Polity Press / April 2020)
David has designed the covers for a number of books by Svend Brinkmann, including Standpoints, which featured on the blog back in March 2018.
The cover of the UK edition of A Luminous Republic, which Granta is publishing in a couple of months, was designed by Luke Bird. It’s a really interesting contrast!
This feels a bit like blogging at the end of world, but I am taking my joy where I can get it these days. I hope you can find at least a couple of minutes respite from the stress by scrolling through a few nice book covers.
Normally I link titles to the Book Depository because they ship internationally, but I won’t be doing that this month. Please try — more than ever — to support your local independent bookstore instead. Amazon does not need your money.
In Canada, many independent stores are offering free local delivery. Some may still be offering curbside pick-up, although that no longer seems to be the case in Toronto and Montreal. If you are in the US, you can also check out bookshop.org, which allows you to order online and support local stores. LitHub posted some other tips on how to help (US) bookstores here. I know there are some fundraisers for booksellers doing the rounds too. If anyone has collected them together in one place or can point to other useful resources, please let me know — I’ll be more than happy to post the links.1
Stay safe. Read books.
Actress by Anne Enright; design by Evan Gaffney (W. W. Norton / March 2020)
The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton; design by Tristan Offit (Scribner / January 2020)
Companions by Katie M. Flynn; design by Laywan Kwan (Scout Press / March 2020)
Meh. February. At least it’s almost over (and the book covers are good).
The Bear by Andrew Krivak; design by Alban Fischer (Bellevue Literary Press / February 2020)
(I read an ARC of The Bear last year (full disclosure: the folks that pay me distribute Bellevue Literary Press in Canada), and haven’t really stopped talking about it since, so I may as well mention here too. It’s very sincere, and reminiscent of the kind of Cold War science fiction in which war and environmental catastrophe have led to the end of civilization. It is not dystopian though. It reads rather like beautiful melancholy fable. I liked it a lot.)
One for the meta-covers list (and does the use of Lydian on the cover of a book on the cover of book count as ironic?)
The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave; design by Lucy Kim (Little Brown & Co / February 2020)
The cover of the UK edition published by Picador was designed by Katie Tooke I believe (and if anyone can tell me who the did the illustration — based on traditional Norwegian folk art rosemaling — I would be grateful!)
Verge by Lidia Yuknavitch; design by Rachel Willey (Riverhead / February 2020)
Whistleblower by Susan Fowler; design by Catherine Casalino (Viking / February 2020)
Nice type.
Weather by Jenny Offill; design by John Gall (Knopf / February 2020)
There haven’t been very many John Gall covers on the blog recently, so it’s a delight to post two in the same month. And this really is a most Gallian of John Gall covers.
The cover of the UK edition of Weather, published by Granta, was designed by Gray318…
