Books, Design and Culture
I am a little late on this, but AIGA and Design Observer recently announced the winners of 50 Books | 50 Covers for 2017. This year’s jury consisted of Rodrigo Corral, Carin Goldberg, Maricris Herrera, and Jessica Helfand. The 50 books are here; the 50 covers here.
My 2017 covers list, which has, admittedly, something of a different scope, can be found here.
Lots of type-only covers, some YA, a couple of university presses, and a little bit of everything else in this month’s round-up.
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke; design by La Boca (Sphere / August 2018)
It’s interesting to compare/contrast this with the Rodrigo Corral cover design for Space Odyssey by Michael Benson also published last month.
Are You Sleeping by Kathleen Barber; design by Laywan Kwan (Galley / March 2018)
Back to Black by Kehinde Andrews; design by David Gee (ZED Books / September 2018)
This reminds me of another type-only gem from David:
Codex 1962 by Sjón; design by Rodrigo Corral (MCD / September 2018)
The cover of the UK edition of Codex 1962 published earlier this year by Sceptre takes a very different direction with stunning art by Owen Gent:
Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram; design by Samira Iravani; art by Adams Carvalho (Dial Books / September 2018)
The Doctor Stories by William Carlos Williams; design by Joan Wong (New Directions / September 2018)
The Fed and Lehman Brothers by Laurence M. Ball; design by Catherine Casalino (University of Cambridge Press / June 2018)
Fear by Bob Woodward; design by David Litman (Simon & Schuster / September 2018)
White text on a red background is not new, and I suspect it has never gone out of fashion for mass-market thrillers, but it’s interesting to see it reemerge as a “serious book” cover trend. The Real Lolita cover was designed by Sara Wood:
From Cold War to Hot Peace by Michael McFaul; design by Richard Green (Allen Lane / May 2018)
Gone to Drift by Diana McCaulay; design by David Curtis; illustration by Dadu Shin (HarperCollins / April 2018)
Heartbreaker by Claudia Dey; design by Rachel Willey (Random House / August 2018)
Apparently we can’t get enough of the 1980s. This is essentially ‘The Night Begins to Shine’ rendered into a book cover (and if you don’t get that reference, I’m guessing you don’t have kids. And yes, I’m going to make you Google it)
Rachel also designed the retro cover for The Comedown by Rebekah Frumkin for Henry Holt earlier this year:
Liveblog by Megan Boyle; design by Nicole Caputo (Tyrant Books / September 2018)
Night Moves by Jessica Hopper; design by Amanda Weiss (University of Texas Press / September 2018)
This reminds me of Kyle G. Hunter’s cover for A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley which I featured earlier this year. Apparently I like blurry urban nightscapes!
Not Quite Not White by Sharmila Sen; design by Oliver Munday (Penguin / August 2018)
On the Other Side of Freedom by Deray McKesson; design by Matt Dorfman (Viking / September 2018)
Other People’s Love Affairs by D. Wystan Owen; design by David High / HighDzn (Algonguin / August 2018)
Ponti by Sharlene Teo; design by Tyler Comrie (Simon & Schuster / September 2018)
Pride by Ibi Zoboi; design Jenna Stempel-Lobell (Balzer & Bray / September 2018)
Sadie by Courtney Summers; design by Kerri Resnick; art by Agata Wierzbicka (St. Martin’s Press / September 2018)
Shutters by Ahmed Bouanani; design Oliver Munday (New Directions / July 2018)
Staying Power by Peter Fryer; design by David Pearson; illustration by Adam Busby (Pluto Press / September 2018)
Vox by Christina Dalcher; design by HQ Art Department Kate Oakley (HarperCollins / August 2018)
Good grief! We’re halfway through August! I suppose I’d better post some book covers…
Agrippina: Empress, Exile, Hustler, Whore by Emma Southon; design by Mark Ecob (Unbound / August 2018)
All these Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth; design by Alicia Tatone (William Morrow / July 2018)
Certain American States by Catherine Lacey; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / August 2018)
Cherry by Nico Walker; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / August 2018)
One for the skulls on book covers list. (I haven’t updated this list in a while, but there are a few more here.)
Fight Like a Girl by Clementine Ford; design by Steve Leard (Oneworld / August 2018)
Four by Andy Jones; design by Patrik Svensson (Hodder & Stoughton / July 2018)
Heretics Anonymous by Katie Henry; design by David Curtis (Katherine Tegen Books / August 2018)
Immigrant, Montana by Amitava Kumar; design Janet Hansen (Knopf / July 2018)
Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone; design by Derek Thornton/Faceout Studio (Lake Union / August 2018)
I’ve said it before and I will say it again, Amazon’s Lake Union imprint is doing a scarily good job with their genre covers.
A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne; design by Jo Thomson (Doubleday / August 2018)
The Line That Held Us by David Joy; design by Michael Morris (G.P. Putnam’s Sons / August 2018)
This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga; design Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / August 2018)
Notes from the Fog by Ben Marcus; design Peter Mendelsund (Knopf / August 2018)
Pretend I’m Dead by Jen Beagin; design by Alex Merto (Scribner / May 2018)
The cover of the UK edition was designed by Hayley Warnham. And apparently rubber glove covers are a thing now, you freakin’ weirdos…
The cover of The Trauma Cleaner was designed by W.H. Chong.
The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor; design by Strick&Williams (Catapult / August 2018)
This goes very nicely with the cover of the US edition of Reservoir 13 also designed by Strick&Williams:
Rust and Stardust by T. Greenwood; design by Olga Grlic (St. Martin’s Press / August 2018)
A Short Film About Disappointment by Joshua Mattson; design by Ben Denzer (Penguin Press / August 2018)
The Stars Now Unclaimed by Drew Williams; design by Jack Smyth (Simon & Schuster / August 2018)
A Superior Spectre by Angela Meyer; design by Design by Committee (Ventura / August 2018)
Holly Dunn interviews designer, illustrator and author Coralie Bickford-Smith for the first episode of season 2 of the Spine Magazine podcast:
Comments closedHere are my book cover selections for July…
Brooklyn Mom & Pop by Herb Lester Associates; design Amy Hood (Herb Lester Associates / July 2018)
Another very nice looking guide from the folks at Herb Lester. The question is, where are the guides to Canadian cities?
Call Me American by Abdi Nor Iftin; design by Kelly Blair (Knopf / June 2018)
Charlotte Walsh Likes To Win by Jo Piazza; design by Zak Tebbal (Simon & Schuster / July 2018)
In other news, hand-lettered covers aren’t going anywhere (and apparently underlining is a “thing”)…
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata; design by Luke Bird (Portobello Books / July 2018)
Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce; design by Kimberly Glyder (Scribner /. July 2018)
The cover of the UK edition, published earlier this year by Picador, was designed by Katie Tooke. You can read about the design process for the UK cover here.
Florida by Lauren Groff; design by Grace Han (Riverhead / June 2018)
The cover of Groff’s 2015 novel Fates and Furies (also published by Riverhead) was designed by Rodrigo Corral and Adalis Martinez:
The Girl You Thought I Was by Rebecca Phillips; design Michelle Taormina and Alison Klapthor; Photograph by Marta Bevaqua (Harpercollins / July 2018)
Besides using a beautiful photograph, I get the sense this cover is very much on trend, and not just for YA — I’ve seen the cover of a thriller coming out this fall that also uses a close-cropped image of a woman’s face, a similar sans-serif type, and a warm sepia colour palette.
Good Trouble by Joseph O’Neill; design by Janet Hansen (Pantheon / June 2018)
Gorse No.10 edited by Christodoulos Makris; design by Niall McCormack (July 2018)
All of Niall’s covers for Gorse are great. No.9 was featured in my November 2017 post:
Also, yellow-orange covers are clearly “in” right now…
A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings by Helen Jukes; design Helen Crawford-White (Scribner / July 2018)
In the Distance by Hernan Diaz; design by Luke Bird (Daunt Books / June 2018)
One for the sideways covers list (I have kind of stop collecting these, but there are more here).
The cover of the US edition of In the Distance, published by Coffee House Press, features artwork by Jason Fulford.
I Will Be Complete by Glen David Gold; design by Tyler Comrie (Knopf / June 2018)
The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon; design Jaya Miceli (Riverhead / July 2018)
Smile by Roddy Doyle; design and lettering by Nick Misani (Viking / October 2017)
OK, so I am very late to this one. I saw it last year and didn’t know who the designer was — I only found out this week when art director Jason Ramirez revealed that it was one of the TDC Communication Design Competition winners this year!
Sonic Youth Slept On My Floor by Dave Haslam; design Bekki Guyatt (Constable / May 2018)
Sweet Thames by Matthew Kneale; design by Alice Marwick (Atlantic Books / July 2018)
There There by Tommy Orange; design by Suzanne Dean; art by Bryn Perrott (Harvill Secker / July 2018)
The cover of the US edition, published by Knopf, is another Tyler Comrie design:
Thanks to a combination of disk storage issues, the AUPresses Book, Jacket, and Journal Show, breaking my wrist, general anxiety, and utter despair at the latest round of horror, corruption and lies to the south, this month’s covers post is…well, late. Fuck it. Donate to a good cause. 1
Aroused by Randi Hutter Epstein; design Zoe Norvell (W.W. Norton / June 2018)
One for the neon signs list.
Beyond Vision by Allan Jones; design David Drummond (McGill-Queen’s University Press / June 2018)
Calypso by David Sedaris; design by Peter Mendelsund (Little, Brown & Co. / May 2018)
Crudo by Olivia Laing; design Justine Anweiler; photograph Wolfgang Tillmans (Picador / June 2108)
There have been a number of covers making use of work by famous photographers in recent months. I think the risk of this approach is that the image overwhelms the text. If the photograph is so important, perhaps it is better to just to get out of the way and let it speak for itself? (If, ahem, the ‘interested parties’ will let you, of course!)
He Is Mine and I Have No Other by Rebecca O’Connor; design Rafi Romaya; lettering by Oriol Miró Genovart (Canongate / June 2018)
Watch a video of Oriol Miró Genovart gilding one of the letters:
Here Kitty Kitty by Jardine Libaire; design Catherine Casalino (Hogarth / June 2018)
The Hospital by Ahmed Bouanani; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / June 2018)
Long Players by Peter Coviello; design Catherine Casalino (Penguin / June 2018)
A nice addition to this list.
My German Brother by Chico Buarque; design by Michael Morris (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / June 2018)
The Outsider by Stephen King; design by Will Staehle (Scribner / May 2018)
This has such a great B-movie feel.
A Stitch in Time by Daphne Kalmar; cover art by Karl James Mountford (St Martin’s Press / June 2018)
Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier; design Dan Mogford (The Bodley Head / June 2018)
The cover for the US edition, published by Henry Holt, was designed by Nicolette Seeback. For me, it’s made by the cat wrapping around the spine onto the back cover. Listing the ten arguments on the back is also a really nice touch.
We Begin Our Ascent by Joe Mungo Reed; design by Zak Tebbal (Simon & Schuster / June 2018)
(This really reminds me of something else, but I cannot think of what. It’s bugging me, so let me know if you have any suggestions)
Whistle in the Dark by Emma Healy; design Helen Crawford-White (Viking / May 2018)
The Canadian edition, published by Knopf Canada and designed by Leah Springate, takes a photographic approach. I think it’s a good example of how the Canadian market can be quite different from the UK (and the US)…
America is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo; design by Gray318 (Atlantic Books / May 2018)
A great new entry in the books on book covers genre!
Awayland by Ramona Ausubel; design by Alex Merto (Riverhead / March 2018)
Be More Pirate by Sam Conniff Allende; design by Chris Bentham (Penguin Books / May 2018)
Related: I have a board of skull covers on Pinterest if that is your thing.
The Comedown by Rebekah Frumkin; design by Rachel Willey (Henry Holt / April 2018)
Exactly by Simon Winchester; design by Julian Humphries (William Collins / May 2018)
For some reason this reminded me of a Peter Mendelsund’s 2009(!) cover design for Vintage’s Foucault list. In reality, they don’t actually look that a like at all:
The Gloaming by Kirsty Logan; design Julia Connolly (Harvill Secker / April 2018)
The Honey Farm by Harriet Alida Lye; design by Zoe Norvell (Liveright / May 2018)
This fits both the ‘centred big white type‘ trend and the ‘type and flora‘ trend, but I still like it.
Invasion by Peadar O’Guilin; cover art by Jeffrey Alan Love (David Fickling Books / March 2018)
Jeffrey also did a cover for The Call, the first book in this series,
It Needs To Look Like We Tried by Todd Robert Petersen; design by Nicole Caputo (Counterpoint / May 2019)
The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah; design by Jack Smyth (Simon & Schuster / May 2018)
A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley; design by Kyle G. Hunter (Graywolf / May 2018)
I have to confess that I’m including this partly because I recently had a conversation with a publisher about a street scene on a book cover. The publisher said the author insisted on using a specific photo, which always makes things difficult, but all the same, I felt the photo could be used more effectively. The cover for A Lucky Man isn’t fancy, but it does the job really well — while there is a sense of place and atmosphere (it may even be recognizable if you know the street?), there is also ambiguity that leaves it open to interpretation. The blue of the authors name echoes the blue of a sign in the photo, but it doesn’t over do it — it’s nicely understated.
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner; design by Peter Mendelsund; photograph by Nan Goldin (Scribner / May 2018)
Using a Nan Goldin photo feels like a bold choice — especially for one of the most anticipated books of the year. I don’t know… perhaps Goldin’s photos aren’t as controversial as they once were? It seems appropriate to me, but then I Goldin’s photography. I guess the cover of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihana used a photo by Peter Hujar…?
In any case, it’s quite different look from The Flamethrowers cover (designed by Charlotte Strick), and yet the compositions seem to echo each other (the horizontal bands of title — rectangular photo — author) when you place them side by side:
Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D Jackson; design by Erin Fitzsimmons (Katherine Tegen Books / May 2018)
The National Debt by Martin Slater; design by Steve Leard (Hurst / May 2018)
On Gravity by A. Zee; design by Jason Alejandro (Princeton University Press / May 2018)
The Pisces by Melissa Broder; design by Rachel Willey (Bloomsbury / May 2018)
See What Can be Done by Lorrie Moore; design by Jonny Pelham (Faber & Faber / May 2019)
You can read about the process behind this cover on the Faber blog.
Sharp by Michelle Dean; design by Bekki Guyatt (Little, Brown & Co. / April 2018)
The cover of the US edition published by Grove was designed by Gretchen Mergenthaler and Daniel Rembert, and features an illustration by Kathryn Rathke:
Tomb of the Unknown Racist by Blanche McCrary Boyd; design by Nicole Caputo (Counterpoint / May 2019)
Nicole’s recent covers for Counterpoint all work quite well together. It’s interesting that snaking curves — a worm, a road, an actual snake! — appears in the background of these three:
Why We Fight by Mike Martin; design by Steve Leard (Hurst / May 2018)
Clearly I have a thing for black, white and red covers this month!
The Collection is a short documentary about two friends and their discovery of a unique collection of movie memorabilia, comprised of over 40,000 printer blocks and 20,000 printer plates used to create the original newspaper advertisements for movies released in the US from the silent era through to the 1980s:
(via Coudal)
Comments closedDesign Canada, is a new documentary celebrating the ‘golden era’ of Canadian graphic design:
The film is screening in Canada in the summer 2018, and releasing digitally in the fall.
(via Coudal)
Comments closedHere are April’s cover selections. Lots of very big type this month!
Black Swans by Eve Babitz; design by Kelly Winton (Counterpoint / April 2018)
This goes rather nicely with last year’s cover for Babitz’s novel Sex and Rage also designed by Kelly:
Brass by Xhenet Aliu; design by design Keith Hayes; photography by Nadine Rovner (Random House / January 2018)
Photographic covers have fallen out of favour for literary fiction of late, but I think this works beautifully.
I also like how it echoes Nathan Putens‘ earlier cover design for Aliu’s short stories Domesticated Wild Things, which makes use of a photograph by Helen Levitt.
The other interesting thing about the photograph selection is how much it reminds me of Keith Hayes’ own photography. You can follow him on Instagram.
Circe by Madeline Miller; design by Will Staehle (Little Brown & Co / April 2018)
The cover of Miller’s previous book The Song of Achilles was designed by Allison Saltzman:
The very pretty cover of the UK edition of Circe was designed by David Mann at Bloomsbury:
Death in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda; design by Chris Bentham (Viking / April 2018)
Dictator Literature by Daniel Kalder; design by James Paul Jones (Oneworld / April 2018)
The Earth Does Not Get Fat by Julia Prendergast; design by Alissa Dinallo (UWA Publishing / April 2018)
The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer; design by Ben Denzer (Riverheard Books / April 2018)
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…
Hello It Doesn’t Matter by Derrick C. Brown; design by Zoe Norvell (Write Bloody / April 2018)
My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci; design by Anna Morrison (Pushkin Press / April 2018)
Oliver Munday‘s cover for My Cat Yugoslavia (published by Pantheon) featured in my May 2017 post:
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:
A River in Darkness by Masaji Ishikawa; design by Rachel Adam Rogers (AmazonCrossing / January 2018)
Sit How You Want by Robin Richardson; design by David Drummond (Signal Editions / April 2018)
Space Odyssey by Michael Benson; design by Rodrigo Corral (Simon & Schuster / April 2018)
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.
— David Pearson (@typeasimage) April 11, 2018
In any case, if you are interested in seeing more examples of the ‘big white type’ phenomenon, I started a pinboard a while back.
Waiting for Tomorrow by Nathacha Appanah; design by Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / April 2018)
West by Carys Davies; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Scribner / April 2018)
The Wolf by Leo Carew; design by Patrick Insole (Wildfire / April 2018)
Writing for the Globe and Mail, Claire Cameron, author of The Last Neanderthal, takes a look why at Elisabeth de Mariaffi’s new novel is being packaged differently in Britain and Canada:
A novel is like a question – what happens when…? [UK publisher] Titan Books is focusing on what happen when a child goes missing. “There is nothing more terrifying than the loss of a child!” publisher Miranda Jewess says. Meanwhile, HarperCollins Canada publisher Iris Tupholme says, “Our focus in positioning the book is less on the missing child, though that is a key part of the story, and more on the tension and mystery for [the mother] Heike.”
The book was originally titled ‘I Remember You’ when it was sold to the publishers. But when de Mariaffi brought forward ‘Hysteria’ as an alternative, Tupholme loved it because it “suggests the book’s complexity … the story’s focus on women.” Jewess also considered the new title, but thought ‘Hysteria’ “sounded like a more gritty action thriller.”
Both covers do tap into deep-seated fear. But the different focus of those fears may speak more to a transatlantic literary divide, says Kate Pullinger, a Canadian novelist in Britain and professor of creative writing and digital media at Bath Spa University. She sees the two covers as responding to each market for fiction.
“In Canada, the popular writer can remain literary,” but in Britain, though there are exceptions, Pullinger says “literary fiction is increasingly devalued and invisible in the marketplace.” In her view, the British cover is trying to connect to the commercial market; it ties into the tabloid newspaper culture that screams for attention. “Scary Sad Crime Happened Here!”
I seem to spend a lot of time in my professional life trying to explain why titles and covers for Canada (and the US) sometimes need to be different from their counterparts in the UK. I even put together some examples for recent trip to London. So I don’t know that this is a ‘rare’ as Cameron supposes. But, in any case, enough people have expressed interest in this that I am trying to expand that original deck into a more coherent presentation for a few other clients. If I ever get it finished I will share a version of it here.
Comments closed
The Association of University Presses recently announced the selections for their 2018 Book, Jacket, & Journal Show.
The show is the oldest continuous book design competition in the US, and I was lucky enough to join McSweeney’s designer Sunra Thompson in deciding this year’s cover selections. The book selections were made by designer Linda Secondari and writer Robert Bringhurst. You can see all the selected entries — books and covers — in this AUPresses slideshow:
Comments closed