Hey. I hope you’re keeping safe and well, especially my friends and colleagues in snowy NYC. Thanks to everyone who helped with images and design credits this month — it’s been a really busy month so I really appreciate it!
Oliver’s own novel, Head of Household, is out from Simon & Schuster in the US this month too. The cover was designed by Christopher Brand, and you can read a conversation between the two about the design process at LitHub.
Favorita by Michelle Steinbeck; translated by Jen Calleja; design by Henry Petrides (Faber & Faber / February 2026)
At the turn of the year, writer and activist Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshitification.” Although he was specifically describing the process of online services getting worse for users, it was hard not to see it everywhere in 2023.
In his annual look at the year’s best book covers for the New York Times, art director Matt Dorfman recounts a friend describing 2023 as a “year of survival”, a year of “no growth, no withering, just getting by.”
This year saw a centuries-old business contending with rounds of buyouts and layoffs, alongside an endless news cycle involving two brutal wars from which no authors, friends, enemies or strangers were immune from accountability for any unrehearsed sentiment they might voice in passing. Add to this the ongoing concern about how artificial intelligence will affect a business historically dependent upon human creativity — yet through it all, there was still the matter of making books, and their covers, to get on with.
I read Matt’s piece the same day I read an article by Kyle Chayka in the New Yorkerabout his search foran epochal term to “evoke the panicky incoherence of our lives of late.” The suggestions range from the bland ‘Long 2016,’ to the incredibly ominous-sounding ‘Chthulucene,’ the Lovecraftian ‘New Dark Age,’ and the frankly terrifying and plausible ‘Jackpot’ from William Gibson’s 2014 novel The Peripheral.
This was the context of life and work in 2023.
Matt notes some designers found inspiration in the zeitgeist. He’s not wrong. But, ironically perhaps, I feel less optimistic about the overall picture than he does.
At the risk of repeating what I’ve written in the past couple of years, it’s like we’re stuck in a holding pattern, circling the same design ideas. Trends have stuck around. A lot of covers feel safe. Some of this was the books themselves. I’m not sure exactly how many celebrity memoirs is too many, but I’m pretty sure we reached that point and sailed right past it in 2023. No doubt some of it is sales and marketing departments sanding down all the edges and demanding the tried and true (see Zachary Petit’s alternative best of 2023 piece on killed covers for Fast Company). But I would not be surprised if it designers were just getting caught up in the churn — too many books, too many covers, and too much other stuff to worry about.
Or maybe it’s just me.
Rouge by Mona Awad; design by Oliver Munday (Simon & Schuster / September 2023)Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia; design by Regina Flath (Del Rey Books / July 2023)Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez; design by Donna Cheng (Hogarth / September 2023)
One of the themes of the year was nostalgia, which I’m sure can also be put down to the present being pretty fucking awful. It was apparent across almost all genres, including literary fiction, but nowhere more so than in the resurgent supernatural suspense and horror categories. There were creative stylistic mashups with retro vibes, along side fastidious Stranger Things-like homages to the 1980s and Stephen King.
Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward; design by Katie Klimowicz (Tor / August 2023)The Only One Left by Riley Sager; design by Kaitlin Kall (Dutton / June 2023)Come Closer by Sara Gran; design by Caroline Johnson (Soho Press / September 2023)
One genuinely pleasant surprise was the number of interesting covers from Canadian publishers this year. They’ve been quietly risk-averse in recent years, so it was nice to see a few bolder design choices getting approved. I was happy to see a Canadian cover was one of the top picks on Literary Hub’s (very, very long) list of the best covers of 2023.
There were other things to cheer this year too.
The Lights by Ben Lerner; design by David Pearson (Granta / September 2023)Total Reset by Sinéad Brady; design Steve Leard (HarperCollins / March 2023)How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney; design by Zoe Norvell (Biblioasis / November 2023)
Spine continued to give space to designers to talk about their work in a way I’ve never been able to do consistently here. You can find their 2023 cover picks here.
David Pearson started the Book Cover Review, a website for short reviews of book covers.
Zoe Norvell’s I Need A Book Cover, a resource for book cover inspiration as well as place for authors and publishers to connect with designers, also went live.
Steve Leard launched Cover Meeting, a podcast series of in-depth interviews with cover designers (including David and Zoe among others). As Mark Sinclair notes in his piece on book cover design this year for Creative Review, Steve’s conversations shed light on wider concerns in the industry as well as each designer’s individual process. Have a listen if you haven’t already.
Berlin by Bea Setton; design by Emily Mahon; cover image by Nataša Denić (Penguin Books / May 2023)
Also designed by Emily Mahon:
Lost Believers by Irina Zhorov; design by Emily Mahon (Scribner / August 2023)Do Tell by Lindsay Lynch; design by Emily Mahon; illustration and lettering by Studio Martina Flor (Doubleday / July 2023)
B.F.F. by Christie Tate; design by Ben Wiseman (Avid Reader Press / February 2023)
The Illiterate by Ágota Kristóf; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / April 2023)
Also designed by Oliver Munday:
The Guest by Emma Cline; design by Oliver Munday (Random House / May 2023)Life on Delay by John Hendrikson; design by Oliver Munday (Knopf / January 2023)
Sublunar by Harald Voetmann; design by Jamie Keenan (New Directions / August 2023)
Also designed by Jamie Keenan:
The Dimensions of a Cave by Greg Jackson; design by Jamie Keenan (Granta / October 2023)Dr. No by Percival Everett; design by Jamie Keenan (Influx Press / March 2023)
I hope you’re keeping safe and well. There’s quite a nice mix of covers this month (I think?). There’s some fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Some paperbacks and some hardcovers. Inevitably there are books from the big folks in NYC, but there’s also some indie titles, and a couple of covers from the UK. There is even some Canadian content for those of you who care about that sort of thing.1
This is the third Rodrigo Corral cover for New Direction’s editions of Dazai. I’m curious — can anyone can tell me the typeface? UPDATE: it’s not a typeface, it’s lettering! Thanks to Erik at New Directions for letting me know (and for sending the final cover)!
Oh and if you’re curious about the enduring popularity of Dazai (who died in 1948), Andrew Martin wrote a piece about it for the the New York Times.
Trace Evidence by Charif Shanahan; design by Beth Steidle (Tin House / March 2023)
If one of the fine folks at Tin House would like to send me a higher quality image, I’ll be glad to add it in! Thanks to the fine folks at Tin House for sending over the cover!
Voyager by Nona Fernández; design by Kapo Ng (Graywolf Press / February 2023)
When it comes to choosing the year’s best book covers, it seems that everyone is at it these days…
Against Everything by Mark Greif; design by Kelly Blair (Pantheon / 2016)
Private Novelist by Nell Zink; design by Sara Wood, art by Evgenia Loli (Ecco / 2016)
“These covers are challenging without being impenetrable and playful without being precious — none of which is an easy task for a designer. If good design might lure us into an experience that makes us smarter, then we’ve hit the jackpot when the book allows us to spend time within the head space of a stranger.”
I always look forward to Matt Dorfmann’s selections for the New York Times Book Review. Matt is the NYTBR‘s art director and a cover designer in his own right so he knows what he’s talking about, and his choices are always interesting. If I am honest, I think this is the list the designers (American designers at least) really pay attention to. And it’s worth noting that half of Matt’s choices this year were designed by women.
Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple; design by Kelly Blair; cover art by Geoff McFetridge (Little Brown & Co / October 2016)
I’m Supposed to Protect You From All This by Nadja Spiegelman; design by Grace Han (Riverhead / August 2016)
This is another one of those posts that started out on Twitter — a flippant tweet from me sparking a conversation about books with cassette tapes and vinyl records on their covers. It turns out that putting a record on a cover has become quite popular. Unfortunately the composition of many of these covers is often strikingly similar, even if the tone/intent is different.
design and illustration Chloe Cushman
design Michel Vrana
design James Paul Jones
The combination of clunky retro-future technology of cassettes and the DIY aesthetic of mix tapes, on the other hand, provides a richer vein of inspiration…
The Art Behind the Tape by Marshall “DJ Mars” Thomas, Djibril Ndiaye, Maurice Garland, and Tai Saint-Louis; design UnderConsideration (2015)
Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my! I’m kicking off a new series today on animal book covers. The first post is on ‘beasts’ — mostly ‘wild’ beasts, but one or two more domesticated (and dead) animals may have nosed their way in. Other posts series will look at birds, bugs, reptiles and amphibians, and quite possibly sea creatures and farm animals (unless someone pays me a large amount of money to stop before that). Thanks to all the designers, ADs, publicists and others who have been helping me with images and credits. If you notice that some information about a cover is missing, please let me know.
A comprehensive visual history of the human skull is surely an entire Steven Heller book in the making (I guess we’ll just have to make do with a Wikipedia page for now). But as Faye Dowling’s contemporary compendium The Book of Skulls1 makes plain, what was once taboo — terrifying even — has become a pop culture phenomenon. Images of skulls now appear in art, design, fashion, and illustration. Apparently we like to be reminded we are all going to die. Even book covers are not immune. Here are a few recent examples that caught my eye:
Well, this seems to have become a regular thing doesn’t it? I have to confess that I still haven’t quite figured out exactly what covers to include in these monthly posts, only that they’re recent and I like them. It’s even harder to decide what to leave out. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this month’s selection. Leave your thoughts in the comments… Abroadby Katie Crouch; design by Rodrigo Corral (FSG June 2014)
I didn’t exactly know what to call this post, but ‘postscript’ seems appropriate.
Every time I post my annual list of favourite covers I immediately see (or remember) a dozen designs that would have been on the list (or would’ve been close) if I did it all over again. This is an attempt to collect a few of those covers from last year in one place. I guess you could call it a list of ‘honourable mentions,’ but that doesn’t seem quite right. Truthfully, it’s a collection of some of the covers that I saw for the the first time, or was gently reminded of, immediately after I posted my original list. It is, as much as anything else, an excuse to post more fantastic work from 2013.
I have been completely overwhelmed by the incredible response to this year’s covers post, and although I could probably do lists like this for the rest of 2014, I won’t. I will save my energy for next December. Happy New Year!
I liked a lot of the BFI covers (obviously!), but Mark’s design for The Shining struck me as particularly clever. You can read about the design process for all the recent BFI Film Classics here.
Ok. I had seen this cover and didn’t forget about it either. It was on my list from the start and it got cut at the last minute. I’ve agonised about it since. Sorry Peter.
Part a series of videos about the workings of Random House, The Art of Cover Design features interviews with an impressive roster of designers: Marysarah Quinn, Robbin Schiff, Chip Kidd,Peter Mendelsund and Christopher Brand…
