Tag: david pearson

Published October 28, 2020

Book Covers of Note, October 2020

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.

The Acrobats of Agra by Robin Scott-Elliot; design by Holly Ovenden (Everything with Words / October 2020)

The Age of Skin by Dubravka Ugresic; design by Jack Smyth (Open Letter / November 2020)

Always Brave Sometimes Kind by Katie Bickell; design by Tree Abraham (Touchwood Editions / September 2020)

Anger by Barbara H. Rosenwein; design by Alex Kirby (Yale University Press / July 2020)

Be My Guest by Priya Basil; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / November 2020)

Cesare by Jerome Charyn; design by Elsa Mathern (No Exit Press / November 2020)

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata; design by Luke Bird (Granta / September 2020)

Hitler and Stalin by Laurence Rees; design by David Pearson (Viking / October 2020)

The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada; design by Janet Hansen (New Directions / October 2020)

The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher; design by Chelsea McGuckin (Saga Press / October 2020)

Infrastructures of the Apocalypse by Jessica Hurley; design by Matt Avery / Monograph Studio (University of Minnesota Press / October 2020)

The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab; design by Will Staehle (Tor / October 2020)

Kreminology of Kisses by Barbara Bleiman; design Alex Kirby (Blue Door Press / November 2020)

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)

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam; design by Sara Wood; art ‘Night Swimming’ by Jessica Brilli (Ecco / October 2020)

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow; design by Lisa Marie Pomilio (Redhook / October 2020)

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark; design by Henry Sene Yee (Tor / October 2020)

Selected Poems of John Berryman edited by Philip Coleman and Calista McRae; design Jaya Miceli (Belknap Press / October 2020)

The Sun Collective by Charles Baxter; design Tyler Comrie (Pantheon / November 2020)

Talking Animals by Joni Murphy; design by Na Kim; photograph by KOEKKOEK (FSG / August 2020)

Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify by Carolyn Holbrook; design by Kimberly Glyder (University of Minnesota Press / July 2020)

Watch Over Me by Nina Lacour; design by Samira Iravani; illustration by Pippa Young (Dutton / September 2020)

Interestingly, two previous covers designed by Samira for Nina Lacour titles have featured illustrations by Adams Carvalho.

We Are Okay by Nina Lacour; design by Samira Iravani; illustration by Adams Carvalho (Dutton / February 2017)

Worked Over by Jamie K. McCallum; design by Chin-Yee Lai (Basic Books / September 2020)

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Published October 9, 2020

Penguin Great Ideas Volume VI

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.

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Published August 5, 2020

David Pearson’s Penguin Camus

David Pearson has designed three new covers for the Penguin editions of Albert Camus’ novels The Plague, The Outsider, and The Fall. The typeface is apparently Portrait, designed by Berton Hasebe for Commercial Type, and the covers are printed on Colorplan Dapple embossed paper from G. F. Smith. The new editions were published July 30, 2020.

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Published February 26, 2020

Book Covers of Note, February 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.)

Black Sunday by Tola Rotimi Abraham; design Nicole Caputo (Catapult / February 2020

Losing Eden by Lucy Jones; design by Tom Etherington (Allen Lane / February 2020)

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata; design by John Gall (Hanover Square Press / February 2020)

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!)

Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong; design by Na Kim (One World / February 2020)

The cover of UK edition, which Profile Books is publishing next month, was designed by Steve Panton:

Pallbearing Stories by Michael Melgaard; design by Alysia Shewchuk (House of Anansi / February 2020)

Rendang by Will Harris; design by David Pearson (Granta / February 2020)

A Tall History of Sugar by Curdella Forbes; design by Gill Heeley (Canongate / February 2020)

The cover of the US edition, published last year by Akashic Books, was designed by Christian Fuenfhausen…

This Brilliant Darkness by Jeff Sharlet; design by Sarahmay Wilkinson (W.W. Norton / February 2020)

Too Much by Rachel Vorona Cote; design by Jennifer Carrow (Grand Central / February 2020)

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…

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Published February 4, 2020

David Pearson’s Penguin John le Carré

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.

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Published January 24, 2020

The Decade in Book Covers

There is a bit of story to this post. The short version is that I started it in 2018 to celebrate 10 years of the blog. When that deadline went whooshing past, I thought I would rework it for the end of 2019 as a look back at the decade. Now in 2020, with the risk of another deadline coming and going before I get it exactly right, I am just going to post this as it is — a collection of covers from the past 10 years1 that I quite like!

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean, design by Will Staehle (Little Brown & Co. / July 2010)

Ethics of Interrogation by Michael Skerker, designed by Isaac Tobin (University of Chicago Press / May 2010)

Filthy English by Peter Silverton, design by Dan Mogford (Portobello / October 2010)

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman, designed by Roberto de Vicq (Random House / 2010)

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, design by David Pearson (Picador / December 2010)

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, designed by Rodrigo Corral Design (Random House / September 2010)

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan; design by Barbara deWilde (Knopf / June 2010)

Amerika by Franz Kafka, design by Peter Mendelsund (Schocken / August 2011)

Adventures in the Orgasmatron by Christopher Turner; design by Marina Drukman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux June 2011)

Fever by Sonia Shah; design by LeeAnn Falciani (Picador / June 2011)

The First Husband by Laura Dave, designed by Jaya Miceli (Penguin / May 2011)

The Information by James Gleick, designed by Peter Mendelsund (Pantheon March 2011)

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi design by Helen Yentus with Jason Booher (Riverhead / September 2011)

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, design by Matt Dorfman (Riverhead Books / May 2011)

After Freud Left edited by John Burnham; designed by Isaac Tobin (University of Chicago Press / May 2012)

The Dubliners by James Joyce; design by Apfel Zet (Penguin / May 2012)

Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck by Eric G. Wilson; design by Rodrigo Corrall, hand-lettering by Jennifer Carrow, photograph by Simon Lee (FSG March 2012)

The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus; design by Peter Mendelsund (Knopf / January 2012)

Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel by Shalom Auslander; design by John Gall (Riverhead / January 2012)

May We Be Forgiven by A. M. Homes; designed by Alison Forner (Viking / September 2012)

NW by Zadie Smith; design by Gray318 (Hamish Hamilton / September 2012)

First Novel by Nicholas Royle; design by Suzanne Dean; photography Stephen Banks (Cape / February 2013)

The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner; design by Charlotte Strick (Scribner / April 2013)

The Hamlet Doctrine by Simon Critchley & Jamieson Webster; design by David A. Gee (Verso September 2013)

Lionel Asbo by Martin Amis; design by Jamie Keenan (Vintage / May 2013)

Middle C by William Gass; Design by Gabriele Wilson (Knopf / March 2013)

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell; design by David Pearson (Penguin / January 2013)

The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot; design by Jamie Keenan (Liveright Classics / September 2013)

What the Family Needed by Steven Amsterdam; design by Jennifer Heuer (Riverhead / March 2013)

All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu; design by Isabel Urbina Peña (Knopf / March 2014)

The Book of Heaven by Patricia Storace; design by Linda Huang (Pantheon / February 2014)

California by Edan Lepucki; design Julianna Lee (Little Brown & Co. / July 2014)

Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson; design by Allison Saltzman; illustration by Bryan Nash Gill (Ecco / June 2014)

Love Me Back by Merritt Tierce; design by Emily Mahon; illustration by Rizon Parein(Doubleday / September 2014)

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka; design by Jamie Keenan (W. W. Norton / February 2014)

My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead; design by Elena Giavaldi (Crown / January 2014)

On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee; design by Helen Yentus; lettering Jason Booher (Riverhead / January 2014)

Your Face in Mine by Jess Row; design by Oliver Munday (Riverhead / August 2014)

The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector; design by Paul Sahre (New Directions / August 2015)

Hotels of North America by Rick Moody; design by Keith Hayes (Little, Brown & Co. / November 2015)

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin; design by Justine Anweiler; photography Jonathan Simpson (Picador UK / September 2015)

Motorcycles I’ve Loved by Lily Brooks-Dalton; design by Rachel Willey (Riverhead / April 2015)

Munich Airport by Greg Baxter; design by Anne Twomey (Twelve Books / January 2015)

One Day in the Life of the English Language by Frank L. Cioffi; design by Chris Ferrante (Princeton University Press / March 2015)

Weathering by Lucy Wood; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury / January 2015)

The Woman Who Read Too Much by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani; design by Anne Jordan & Mitch Goldstein (Stanford University Press / April 2015)

Addlands by Tom Bullough; design by Jenny Grigg (Granta / June 2016)

The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert; design by Jaya Miceli (Scribner / January 2016)

Dialogue by Robert McKee; design by Catherine Casalino (Twelve Books / July 2016)

How Propaganda Works by Jason Stanley; design by Chris Ferrante (Princeton University Press / May 2016)

Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett; design by Keith Hayes (Little, Brown & Co. / May 2016)

Moonglow by Michael Chabon; design by Adalis Martinez (Harper / November 2016)

The Start of Something by Stuart Dybek; design Suzanne Dean; cover art by Marion de Man (Jonathan Cape / November 2016)

The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel; design by Allison Colpoys (Scribe / August 2016)

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue design by Kimberly Glyder (Little, Brown & Co. / September 2016)

The Age of Perpetual Light by Josh Weil; design by Nick Misani (Grove Press / September 2017)

All We Saw by Anne Michaels; design by Janet Hansen; photograph by Jouke Bos (Knopf / October 2017)

Heating & Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly; design by Alex Merto; photograph by Gregory Reid (W.W. Norton / December 2017)

Jerzy by Jerome Charyn; design by Alban Fischer (Bellevue Literary Press / March 2017)

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood; design by Rachel Willey (Riverhead / May 2017)

A Separation by Katie Kitamura; design by Jaya Miceli (Riverhead / February 2017)

Virgin and Other Stories by April Ayers Lawson; design by James Paul Jones (Granta / January 2017)

We All Love the Beautiful Girls by Joanne Proulx; design by Jennifer Griffiths (Viking / August 2017)

Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber; design by David Litman (Simon & Schuster / May 2018)

Cherry by Nico Walker; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / August 2018)

The Comedown by Rebekah Frumkin; design by Rachel Willey (Henry Holt / April 2018)

Evening in Paradise by Lucia Berlin; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / November 2018)

The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer; design by Ben Denzer (Riverhead Books / April 2018)

Liveblog by Megan Boyle; design by Nicole Caputo (Tyrant Books / September 2018)

There There by Tommy Orange; design by Suzanne Dean; art by Bryn Perrott (Harvill Secker / July 2018)

Aug 9 — Fog by Kathryn Scanlan; design by Na Kim (Farrar Straus & Giroux MCD / June 2019)

The Dutch House by Ann Patchet; design by Robin Bilardello; painting by Noah Saterstrom (HarperCollins / September 2019)

Lanny by Max Porter; design by Jonny Pelham (Faber & Faber / March 2019)

Malina by Ingeborg Bachman; design by Peter Mendelsund (New Directions / June 2019)

Muscle by Alan Trotter; design by Gray318 (Faber & Faber / February 2019)

Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / August 2019)

The Unwanted by Michael Dobbs; design by Tyler Comrie (Knopf / April 2019)

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Published December 11, 2018

Book Covers of Note 2018

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:

Something Great and Beautiful by Enrico Pellegrini; design by Gray318 (Other Press / September 2018)

Me Mum. Me Dad. Me. by Malcolm Duffy; design Gray318 (Head of Zeus / April 2018)

Feel Free by Zadie Smith; design by Gray318 (Hamish Hamilton / February 2018)

(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:

Staying Power by Peter Fryer; design by David Pearson; illustration by Adam Busby (Pluto Press / September 2018)

Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know by Colm Tóibín; design David Pearson (Viking / October 2018)

England’s Discontents by Mike Wayne; design by David Pearson (Pluto Press / November 2018)

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:

Immigrant, Montana by Amitava Kumar; design Janet Hansen (Knopf / July 2018)

Provocations by Camille Paglia; design Janet Hansen (Pantheon / October 2018)

Circe by Madeline Miller; design by Will Staehle (Little Brown & Co / April 2018)

Also designed by Will Staehle:

The Outsider by Stephen King; design by Will Staehle (Scribner / May 2018)

The Infinite Future by Tim Wirkus; design by Will Staehle (Prentice Hall / January 2018)

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:

Severance by Ling Ma; design Rodrigo Corral (FSG / August 2018)

The End of the End of the Earth by Jonathan Franzen; design by Rodrigo Corral; photo by Jeroen Mantel (FSG / November 2018)

The Linden Tree by Cesar Aira; design by Rodrigo Corral (New Directions / May 2018)

The Comedown by Rebekah Frumkin; design by Rachel Willey (Henry Holt / April 2018)

Also designed by Rachel Willey:

Heartbreaker by Claudia Dey; design by Rachel Willey (Random House / August 2018)

The Pisces by Melissa Broder; design by Rachel Willey (Bloomsbury / May 2018)

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:

Welcome Home by Lucia Berlin; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / November 2018)

Heavy by Kiese Laymon; design by Na Kim (Scribner / October 2018)

Certain American States by Catherine Lacey; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / August 2018)

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 Age of Caesar by Plutarch; translation by Pamela Mensch; design by Catherine Casalino (W.W. Norton / January 2018)

Here Kitty Kitty by Jardine Libaire; design Catherine Casalino (Hogarth / June 2018)

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:

My German Brother by Chico Buarque; design by Michael Morris (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / June 2018)

Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki; design by Michael Morris; illustration by Oliver Wilson (Crown / February 2018)

Hippie by Paulo Coelho; design by Tyler Comrie (Knopf / September 2018)

Also designed by Tyler Comrie:

Ponti by Sharlene Teo; design by Tyler Comrie (Simon & Schuster / September 2018)

Bitwise: A Life in Code by David Auerbach; design by Tyler Comrie (Pantheon / August 2018)

There There by Tommy Orange; design by Tyler Comrie (Knopf / June 2018)

The Hole by José Revueltas; design by John Gall (New Directions / November 2018)

Also designed by John Gall:

The Frolic of the Beasts by Yukio Mishima; design John Gall (Vintage / November 2018)

Emissary by Yuko Tawada; design by John Gall (New Directions / April 2018)

(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:

Pretend I’m Dead by Jen Beagin; design by Alex Merto (Scribner / May 2018)

Let It Bang by RJ Young; design by Alex Merto (HMH / November 2018)

Awayland by Ramona Ausubel; design by Alex Merto (Riverhead / March 2018)

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:

Patient X by David Peace; design by Luke Bird (Faber & Faber / April 2018)

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata; design by Luke Bird (Portobello Books / July 2018)

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:

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones; design by Jaya Miceli (Algonquin Books / February 2018)

The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon; design Jaya Miceli (Riverhead / July 2018)

Wasteland by W. Scott Poole; design by Jaya Miceli (Counterpoint / November 2018)

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:

It Needs To Look Like We Tried by Todd Robert Petersen; design by Nicole Caputo (Counterpoint / May 2019)

Tomb of the Unknown Racist by Blanche McCrary Boyd; design by Nicole Caputo (Counterpoint / May 2019)

The Gunners by Rebecca Kauffman; design by Nicole Caputo (Counterpoint / March 2018)

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:

Notes from the Fog by Ben Marcus; design Peter Mendelsund (Knopf / August 2018)

Calypso by David Sedaris; design by Peter Mendelsund (Little, Brown & Co. / May 2018)

Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants by Mathias Énard; design by Peter Mendelsund (New Directions / November 2018)

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:

Odessa Stories by Isaac Babel; design by Anna Morrison (Puhskin Press / November 2018)

All the Beautiful Girls by Elizabeth J. Church, designed by Anna Morrison (Fourth Estate / March 2018)

Women by Chloe Caldwell; design by Anna Morrison (Fourth Estate / March 2018)

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:

Perfidious Albion by Sam Byers; design Jamie Keenan; art by Emily Allchurch (Faber & Faber / August 2018)

Rock and Roll is Life by D.J. Taylor; design by Jamie Keenan (Constable / May 2018)

Impossible Owls by Brian Phillips; design Jamie Keenan (FSG / October 2018)

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:

The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah; design by Jack Smyth (Simon & Schuster / May 2018)

Yeti by Graham Hoyland; design by Jack Smyth (William Collins / May 2018)

A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better by Benjamin Wood; design by Jack Smyth (Scribner UK / June 2018)

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:

Homeland by Walter Kempowski; design by Dan Mogford (Granta / November 2018)

A Very British Coup by Chris Mullin; design by Dan Mogford (Serpent’s Tail / 2018)

Portraits Without Frames by Lev Ozerov; design by Dan Mogford (Granta / November 2018)

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:

The Largess of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson; design by Suzanne Dean (Jonathan Cape / February 2018)

Nervous States by William Davies; design by Suzanne Dean (Jonathan Cape / September 2018)

The Only Story by Julian Barnes; design by Suzanne Dean (Jonathan Cape / February 2018)

This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga; design Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / August 2018)

Also designed by Kimberly Glyder:

The Last of the Stanfields by Marc Levy; design by Kimberly Glyder (AmazonCrossing / December 2018)

Waiting for Tomorrow by Nathacha Appanah; design by Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / April 2018)

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce; design by Kimberly Glyder (Random House / January 2018)

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:

The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantú; design by Grace Han (Riverhead / February 2018)

There Will Be No Miracles Here by Casey Gerald; design by Grace Han (Riverhead Books / October 2018)

Florida by Lauren Groff; design by Grace Han (Riverhead / June 2018)

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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Published October 24, 2018

Cross It Out

I’ve been thinking about covers that feature one form of redacted text or another for a while, but this post has been sitting in my drafts folder gestating for far too long so I’m publishing now, as-is, because otherwise it is unlikely to ever see the light of day!

The covers of Censoring an Iranian Love Story, designed by Peter Mendelsund, and Nineteen Eighty-Four, designed by David Pearson, are classics of the genre:

Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahriar Mandanipour; design Peter Mendelsund (Knopf / May 2009)

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell; design by David Pearson (Penguin / January 2013)

I thought that this kind of bar redaction (is there a technical term for it?) might be a relatively new — post-The 9-11 Commission Report — phenomena, but (friend of the blog) Richard Weston, AKA Acejet170, recently posted this 1974 Penguin cover for Academic Freedom by Anthony Arblaster, designed by Omnific, on Instagram:

academic freedom close up design omnific

In a lovely design touch, the redacted words appear on the back cover:

Related to bar redaction is the strike-through. One of my favourite examples is Barnbrook‘s cover design for How to Run a Government by Michael Barber, published by Allen Lane.

How to Run a Government by Michael Barber; design by Barnbrook (Allen Lane / March 2015)

I’ve been seeing the straight strike-through used a lot recently. It does a neat job of doing two things at once. It allows you to not say something, while also emphasizing that you are pointedly not saying it.

That Perfectly Useless Concentration by Alan Shapiro; design by Isaac Tobin

Ten Myths About Israel by Ilan Pappe; design Isaac Tobin

I’ve seen it mostly used for nonfiction (as above), but Janet Hansen recently used the strike for the cover of Amitava Kumar’s novel Immigrant, Montana:

Black text on a white background with a red strike-through is its own sub-genre:

The Courage of Hopelessness by Slavoj Zizek; design by Richard Green (Allen Lane / May 2017)

Now You See It by Michael Bierut; design by

In fact, using red — be it more artistic blocks, strikeouts or scribbles — is a popular way to highlight what is being crossed out:

Trust Me, PR is Dead by Robert Phillips; design by Jamie Keenan (Unbound / June 2015)

seven days of peter crumb design gregg kulick

Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball; design by Peter Mendelsund (Pantheon / 2014)

A Book of Untruths by Miranda Doyle; design by Donna Payne (Faber & Faber / June 2017)

And generally the hand-drawn strike-through or scribble seems to be the most popular way to cross something out …

Hope A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander; design by John Gall (Riverhead Books / January 2012)

Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton; design Helen Crawford White (Fig Tree / March 2018)

Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering; design Donna Cheng (Simon & Schuster / July 2018)

All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu; design by Isabel Urbina Peña (Knopf / March 2014)

The Only Story by Julian Barnes; design by Suzanne Dean (Jonathan Cape / February 2018)

One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul; design by C.S. Richardson (Doubleday Canada / March 2017)

If you have (constructive) thoughts on the matter, and/or other examples, please leave them in the comments.

The Last Word by Hanif Kureishi; design by Jaya Miceli (Scribner / March 2015)

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Published March 20, 2018

ABCD Award Winners 2018

I am unfashionably late to the party here, but the winners of the 2018 Academy of British Cover Design (ABCD) Awards were announced last week.

The ABCD Awards are always pleasantly surprising. Every year the shortlists include at least two or three covers I have never seen before, and I find it strangely reassuring that the winners picked on the night are not always the covers I would’ve chosen — somehow that makes it feel more democratic.

The awards have a brand new website (designed by Joseph Bisat Marshall) where you can find this year’s shortlists and archive of the previous awards, but you will find all the winning covers from last week below…

Young Adult

Surrender by Sonya Hartnett; design by Jack Noel; illustration by Jeffrey Alan Love (Walker Books / May 2017)

Sci-fi/Fantasy

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood; design by Suzanne Dean; illustration by Noma Bar (Vintage / October 2017)

Non-fiction

Riot Days by Maria Alyokhina; design by Tom Etherington (Allen Lane / October 2017)

Series Design

Pan 70th Anniversary collection; design Justine Anweiler and Stuart Wilson (Pan / September 2017)

Classics/Reissue

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; design David Pearson (Pluto Press / January 2017)

Children’s 0-5

Jill and Lion by Lesley Barnes; design and illustration by Lesley Barnes (Tate Publishing / March 2017)

Children’s 6-12

Think and Make Like an Artist by Claudia Boldt and Eleanor Meredith; design by Shaz Madani; illustrations by Jay Daniel Wright and Ola Niepsuj (Thames & Hudson / May 2017)

Literary Fiction

The Blot by Jonathan Lethem; design by Gray318 (Jonathan Cape / February 2017)

Crime/Thriller

Dark Pines by Will Dean; design by Mark Swan (Oneworld / January 2018)

Mass Market

The Invisible LIfe of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha; design by Sinem Erkas (Oneworld / September 2017)

You can find my previous posts on the ABCD Award winners here: 2017; 2016; 2015 and 2014.

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Published December 8, 2017

Notable Book Covers of 2017

Since 2010, I’ve posted an annual survey of the year in book covers. The post has expanded and developed over the past 7 years, but essentially it is a collection of the covers published in the previous 12 months that I found interesting or noteworthy in some way. As with the previous couple of years, the 2017 list is organized by covers (alphabetical by title), and by designer so that I can show a greater variety of work, and no one designer or studio dominates.

Thank you to everyone who has supported the blog this year, and special thanks to all the designers, art directors, authors, publishers, and fellow design enthusiasts who have helped me with covers and design credits. My sincere apologies to the designers and publishers not on this year’s list and whose covers I have overlooked in the past 12 months.

A post looking back on the YA covers of 2017 is to follow.

Adult Fantasy by Briohny Doyle design by Laura Thomas (Scribe / July 2017)

Age of Anger by Pankaj Mishra; design by Matthew Young (Allen Lane / February 2017)

The Age of Perpetual Light by Josh Weil; design by Nick Misani (Grove Press / September 2017)

All We Saw by Anne Michaels; design by Janet Hansen; photograph by Jouke Bos (Knopf / October 2017)

Also designed by Janet Hansen:

Always Happy Hour by Mary Miller; design by Elena Giavaldi; art by Lee Price (Liveright / January 2017)

Also designed by Elena Giavaldi:

The Angry Chef by Anthony Warner; design by Steven Leard (Oneworld / June 2017)

Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou; design by Gray318 (Serpent’s Tail / April 2017)

Also designed by Gray318:

The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa; design by Peter Mendelsund (New Directions / August 2017)

Also designed by Peter Mendelsund:

The Cutaway by Christina Kovac; design by Laywan Kwan (Atria / March 2017)

Also designed by Laywan Kwan:

Don’t Save Anything by Jame Salter; design by Zoe Norvell (Counterpoint / November 2017)

England Your England by George Orwell; design by David Pearson (Penguin Modern Classics / March 2017)

Also designed by David Pearson:

English Uprising by Paul Stocker; design by Jamie Keenan (Melville House / September 2017)

Also designed by Jamie Keenan:

The Experiment by Eric Lee; design by David A. Gee (Zed Books / September 2017)

Also designed by David Gee:

The Fall of Lisa Bellow by Susan Perabo; design by Alison Forner (Simon & Schuster / March 2017)

The Futures by Anna Pitoniak; design by Lauren Harms (Lee Boudreaux Books / January 2017)

Also designed by Lauren Harms:

Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag; design by Luke Bird (Faber & Faber / April 2017)

Also designed by Luke Bird:

The Good People by Hannah Kent; design by Rachel Vale (Picador / February 2017)

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood; art direction by Christopher Moisan; illustration by Patrik Svensson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / April 2017)

This HMH cover was my favourite of the new editions of The Handmaid’s Tales, but Noma Bar’s cover for Vintage UK was also nice.

The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler; design by Allison Saltzman (Ecco / March 2017)

Also designed by Allison Saltzman:

Heating & Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly; design by Alex Merto; photograph by Gregory Reid (W.W. Norton / December 2017)

Also designed by Alex Merto:

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado; design by Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / October 2017)

Also designed by Kimberly Glyder:

Hollow by Owen Egerton; design by Matt Dorfman (Counterpoint / July 2017)

Also designed by Matt Dorfman:

How Will I Know You? by Jessic Treadway; design by Catherine Casalino; illustration by Henrietta Harris (Grand Central Publishing / August 2017)

I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell; design by Yeti Lambregts (Tinder Press / August 2017)

Also designed by Yeti Lambregts:

The Idiot by Elif Batuman; design by Suzanne Dean; illustration by Aino-Maija Metsola (Jonathan Cape / June 2017)

Also designed by Suzanne Dean:

The Idiot by Elif Batuman; design by Oliver Munday (Penguin / March 2017)

Also designed by Oliver Munday:

Insomniac Dreams: Experiments with Time by Vladimir Nabokov compiled and edited by Gennady Barabtarlo; design by Chris Ferrante (Princeton University Press / December 2017)

Also designed by Chris Ferrante:

Jerusalem Ablaze by Orlando Ortega-Medina; design by La Boca (Cloud Lodge Books / January 2017)

Also designed by La Boca:

Jerzy by Jerome Charyn; design by Alban Fischer (Bellevue Literary Press / March 2017)

Little Deaths by Emma Flint; design by Justine Anweiler (Picador / January 2017)

Also designed by Justine Anweiler:

Lotus by Lijia Zhang; design by Adly Elewa (Henry Holt / January 2017)

Manly Health and Training by Walt Whitman; design by Richard Ljoenes (Regan Arts / February 2017)

Midlife: A Philosophical Guide by Kieran Setiya; design by Amanda Weiss (Princeton University Press / October 2017)

Narcissism for Beginners by Martine McDonagh; design by Tree Abraham (Unbound / March 2017)

Nicotine by Gregor Hens; design by John Gall (Other Press / January 2017)

One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul; design by C.S. Richardson (Doubleday Canada / March 2017)

Scott was also responsible for my favourite of the (many) Ninety Eighty-Four redesigns this season.

The Parcel by Anosh Irani; design by Allison Colpoys (Scribe / September 2017)

Also designed by Allison Colpoys:

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood; design by Rachel Willey (Riverhead / May 2017)

Also designed by Rachel Willey:

A Separation by Katie Kitamura; design by Jaya Miceli (Riverhead / February 2017)

Also designed by Jaya Miceli:

Sex & Rage by Eve Babitz; design by Kelly Winton (Counterpoint / July 2017)

Strange Heart Beating by Eli Goldstone; design by Jo Walker (Granta / May 2017)

Also designed by Jo Walker:

Swimmer Among the Stars by Kanishk Tharoor; design by Tyler Comrie (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / March 2017)

Also designed by Tyler Comrie:

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Scribner / March 2017)

Also designed by Lauren Peters-Collaer:

Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash by Eka Kurniawan; design by Erik Carter (New Directions / August 2017)

Also designed by Erik Carter:

Virgin and Other Stories by April Ayers Lawson; design by James Paul Jones (Granta / January 2017)

Also designed by James Paul Jones:

We All Love the Beautiful Girls by Joanne Proulx; design by Jennifer Griffiths (Viking / August 2017)

Also designed by Jennifer Griffiths:

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury / June 2017)

Also designed by Greg Heinimann:

Why Poetry by Matthew Zapruder; design by Sara Wood (Ecco / August 2017)

Also designed by Sara Wood:

Would Everybody Please Stop? by Jenny Allen; design by Na Kim (Sarah Crichton Books / June 2017)

Also designed by Na Kim:

The World Goes On by László Krasznahorkai; design by Paul Sahre (New Directions / November 2017)

The cover of Sahre’s “graphic memoir” Two Dimensional Man is also great.

Writing Not Writing by Tom Fisher; design by Anne Jordan and Mitch Goldstein (University of Iowa Press / July 2017)(University of Iowa Press / July 2017)

Also designed by Anne Jordan and Mitch Goldstein:

The Zoo of the New edited by Nick Laird & Don Paterson; design by Richard Green (Particular Books / March 2017)

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Published August 3, 2017

David Pearson on Books and Typography

At the Monotype blog, Theo Inglis talks to designer David Pearson about his career and his type-centric approach to book covers:

We are increasingly being urged to create objects of desire and the cover obviously plays a key role here, especially when a book is aiming for pride of place in a bookshop. Designers visit them regularly, to note the common visual language of related or competing titles. It can be a source of frustration then, when presenting a contrasting or conflicting design aimed at standing out, only to be asked to produce a copycat cover intended to hitch on the success of the latest best-seller. Booksellers often create themed displays dedicated to the latest hot trend, see Hygge for example. Publishers are all-too aware of this and often the pursuit of a like-for-like cover is their priority… Being allowed to use ‘just type’ will always be dependent on what books are blazing a commercial trail… Jon Gray’s cover for Swing Time and John Gall’s for Norwegian Wood, to take two current examples, prove to publishers that the mass market can handle bold, type-driven design and so this approach will be validated for a time.

You read my 2009(!) Q & A with David here.

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Published April 12, 2017

Book Covers of Note April 2017

This edition of ‘book covers of note’ is brought to you entirely by Gray318 who designed the covers of all the books published this month. OK, that’s an exaggeration, but Jon did design FOUR of the covers on my list — all different, all brilliant. How no one has published a monograph of his work yet is beyond me. Anyway… This month’s post also includes covers by David Pearson, Erik Carter, Scott Richardson, Kimberly Glyder, Katie Tooke, Rachel Vale and more…

Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou; design by Gray318 (Serpent’s Tail / April 2017)

England Your England by George Orwell; design by David Pearson (Penguin Modern Classics / March 2017)

The Fortunate Brother by Donna Morrissey; design by Pete Adlington (Canongate / April 2017)

Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag; design by Luke Bird (Faber & Faber / April 2017)

And, just FYI, after 6 years at Faber & Faber, Luke has decided to set up his own studio should you wish to hire him (and on the basis of this cover alone, why wouldn’t you?).

The Good People by Hannah Kent; design by Rachel Vale (Picador / February 2017)

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood; art direction by Christopher Moisan; illustration by Patrik Svensson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / April 2017)

This is just the latest in a number of striking covers for The Handmaid’s Tale — rare bookseller and author Rebecca Romney recently compiled a list.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas; design by Jenna Stempel; illustration Debra Cartwright (Balzer + Bray / February 2017)

The cover of the UK edition of The Hate U Give, published by Walker this month, was designed by Maria Soler.

It’s interesting that both designs have acrostic titles. I wonder if this was in the brief?

Home and Away by Karl Ove Knausgaard and Fredrik Ekelund; design by Alex Merto (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / January 2017)

The cover of the British edition, published by Harvill Secker in November 2016, was designed by Matt Broughton.

Let Go My Hand by Edward Docx; design by Katie Tooke (Picador / April 2017)

Literature Class by Julio Cortázar; design by Rodrigo Corral and Zak Tebbal (New Directions / March 2017)

Locus Solus by Raymond Roussel; design by Erik Carter (New Directions /March 2017)

The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge; design by Will Staehle (Penguin / March 2017)

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell; design by C. S. Richardson (Penguin Canada / March 2017)

In the US, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt have also published a new edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The cover — which owes a wee debt to Peter Mendelsund’s eye motif covers for the Schocken editions of Kafka (in my very humble opinion) — was designed by Mark Robinson.