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)
2019 has felt interminable. It has also felt like there are never enough hours in the day to keep up. You can’t talk to me about TV shows or movies. I haven’t seen any.
When it comes to books, I’m fortunate enough to work in the industry. But what hope do casual readers have of finding the good stuff when the same few titles dominate the conversation and there is so much else competing for their attention?
Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid; design by Caroline Teagle Johnson (Ballantine / March 2019) Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid; design by Lauren Wakefield (Hutchinson / March 2019)
Daisy Jones and the Six had a glamorous, louche 1970s look. The US and UK editions, designed by Caroline Teagle Johnson and Lauren Wakefield respectively, took slightly different directions with the type, but the photograph (a stock image apparently) felt ideally suited to social media.
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood; design by Noma Bar (Chatto & Windus / September 2019)The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood; art direction by Christopher Moisan; illustration by Patrik Svensson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / April 2017)
The Testaments was everywhere and, like the recent Vintage Classics reissue of The Handmaid’s Tale, the cover illustration was unmistakably by Noma Bar. We live in an age where every cult movie and TV show gets a ‘minimalist’ poster now, and I found that The Testaments looked too familiar for me to find it engaging. It didn’t help that the cover of the 2017 US reissue of the The Handmaid’s Tale by Swedish illustrator by Patrik Svenson had already featured a similar 3/4s silhouette. Nevertheless, it was perhaps a bolder cover choice than I’m giving it credit for. If nothing else, it showed that bright green on book covers — once cursed and reviled — is suddenly all the rage!
In terms of trends, 2019 felt more like a continuation of previous years rather than a break with the past. There was a kind of conservatism to a lot of the covers I saw. My sense was that highly polished designs that looked comfortingly familiar were being approved over riskier ones that stood out from the crowd. The most interesting covers often came from small publishers, especially New Directions who seem to be giving a bit more creative license to the designers they work with (some of whom have 9-5s at much bigger publishers!).
Big centred blocks of utilitarian white type over elaborate backgrounds continued to be a mainstay. It’s the book cover as poster, and it works at any size, so I don’t think it’s going away any time soon.
Handwriting and hand-lettering remained popular too, although my sense is that enthusiasm is starting to wane as publishers are opting for greater legibility and designers are turning back to vintage type styles to give a sense of authenticity and craft. (I’m willing to admit the evidence might not back me up on this, however!)
Fun, swishy 1970s-inspired serifs like Benguiat Caslon revival Cabernet are back. People keep trying to make ITC Avant Garde — another iconic 1970s typeface — happen again too. I don’t think it works for the most part, but I can see why designers think it’s cool in a coked-up New York way. Warren Chappell’s earnest calligraphic sans serif Lydian, originally released in 1938, continued its unlikely rise as a go-to literary typeface. It even got an explainer at Vox.
Black and white portrait photography has been the staple of biographies and classics for years, so it was interesting to see closely cropped black and white photographs used on the covers of a couple of new literary novels this year. This isn’t entirely new obviously. Black and white photography has long been used to signify that something is “art” (as opposed to, say, “pornography”). But I think the latest iteration of trend was started by Cardon Webb‘s 2015 cover for A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara which used a black and white photograph by the late Peter Hujar.
Coincidentally the cover of the US edition of Garth Greenwell’s new novel Cleanness, publishing early 2020, was designed by Thomas Colligan and uses contemporary black and white photograph by Jack Davison. (The UK edition, designed by Ami Smithson fits this trend a little less neatly, but features black and white photograph by Mark McKnight)
Something that I didn’t anticipate was the use of contemporary landscape and figure painting on the covers of some the big literary releases of the year. Like black and white photography, it felt almost pre-digital — a grasp at traditional values of craft. I don’t know if I would go as far as to say it is a rejection of post-modernism. But maybe it is? I don’t know. Discuss amongst yourselves.
The Innocents by Michael Crummey; design by Emily Mahon; art by Diana Dabinett (Doubleday / August 2019)The World Doesn’t Require You by Rion Amilcar Scott; design by Laywan Kwan; art by Fahamu Pecou (Liveright / August 2019)Inland by Téa Obrecht; design by Jaya Miceli; art by Tamara Ruiz (Random House / August 2019)
Thank you to all the designers and art directors who’ve been in touch and helped me identify covers for my posts. I’m sorry if I haven’t replied to your message. It’s been a year.
Aug 9 — Fog by Kathryn Scanlan; design by Na Kim (Farrar Straus & Giroux MCD / June 2019)
Also designed by Na Kim:
Lie With Me by Philippe Besson; design by Na Kim (Scribner / April 2019)Mother Winter by Sophia Shalmiyev; design by Na Kim (Simon & Schuster / February 2019) High School by Tegan & Sara; design by Na Kim (MCD / September 2019)
Muscle by Alan Trotter; design by Gray318 (Faber & Faber / February 2019)
Also designed by Gray318:
Quichotte by Salman Rushdie; design by Gray318 (Jonathan Cape / August 2019) Grand Union by Zadie Smith; design by Gray318 (Hamish Hamilton / October 2019)Salt On Your Tongue by Charlotte Runcie; design by Gray318 (Canongate / January 2019)
What We Really Do All Day by Jonathan Gershuny and Oriel Sullivan; design Matthew Young (Pelican / September 2019)Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mithcell; design by Matthew Young (Pelican / October 2019)
One Day by Gene Weingarten; design by David Litman (Blue Rider / October 2019)
Oliver Munday wrote about designing the cover for New Directions at Literary Hub earlier this year.
He also designed a lot my favourite covers this year…
Riots I Have Known by Ryan Chapman; design by Oliver Munday (Simon & Schuster / May 2019)The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead; design by Oliver Munday (Doubleday / July 2019)Thick by Tressie McMillan Cotton; design by Oliver Munday (The New Press / January 2019)White Flights by Jess Row; design by Oliver Munday (Graywolf / August 2019) Harbart by Nabarun Bhattacharya; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / June 2019)
The Revolutionaries by Joshua Furst; design by Tyler Comrie (Knopf / April 2019)The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa; design by Tyler Comrie (Pantheon / August 2019)Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg; design by Tyler Comrie; illustration Justin Metz (Knopf / June)
The Volunteer by Salvatore Scibona; design by Rachel Willey (Penguin / March 2019)
Also designed by Rachel Willey:
The New Me by Halle Butler; design by Rachel Willey (Penguin / March 2019) The Need by Helen Phillips; design Rachel Willey (Simon & Schuster / July 2019)
Oh hey, it’s October, AKA the best month of the year, so this is the last of my monthly cover round-ups for 2019. My look back at the year will be coming soon, so if I have shamefully overlooked your work for the past 10 months, or you want to share a cover design for a book that is coming out in November or December, now would be a really great time to drop me a line! High resolution images are always appreciated. This goes double if you design or illustrate YA covers. 1
Are we seeing the beginnings of a psychedelia revival? There are a couple of covers coming in 2020 in addition to these three that make me think we might be…
