For Vox, Estelle Caswell talks to Steven Heller and Bethany Heck about the history of Cooper Black and why it’s been pop culture’s favorite font for so long.
(via Kottke)
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Published July 10, 2020
Tag: design
Published May 27, 2020
Book Covers of Note, May 2020
A quick update this month. Enjoy…
The Book of Eels by Patrick Svensson; design by Grady McFerrin (Ecco / May 2020)
Broadway for Paul by Vincent Katz; design by Janet Hansen; photograph by Beat Streuli (Knopf / April 2020)
Brown Album by Porochista Khakpour; design by Joan Wong (Vintage / May 2020)
This cover immediately reminded me of Helen Crawford-White’s cover A Half-Baked Idea by 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…?
All My Mother’s Lovers by Ilana Masad; design by Lynn Buckley (Dutton / May 2020) 
You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat; design by Nicole Caputo (Catapult / June 2020)
A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet; design by David High (W. W. Norton / May 2020)
Lydian for Lydia…
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio; design by Matthew Flute (McClelland & Stewart / April 2020)
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)
Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall; design by Lynn Buckley (Viking / February 2020)
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / May 2020)
Out of the Shadows by Walt Odets; design by Tom Etherington; photograph by Wolfgang Tillmans (Penguin / May 2020)
I love this image. I believe it was used on the cover of the hardcover in the UK too.
Pelosi by Molly Ball; design by Adalis Martinez (Henry Holt & Co / May 2020)
Pew by Catherine Lacey; design by Luke Bird (Granta / May 2020)
Pew and Pelosi make lovely use of white space…
A Registry of My Passage Upon The Earth by Daniel Mason; design by Gregg Kulick (Little, Brown & Co / May 2020)
Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg; design by Linda Huang (Vintage / May 2020)
The cover of the hardcover was designed by Tyler Comrie, with an illustration by Justin Metz
Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg; design by Tyler Comrie; illustration Justin Metz (Knopf / June)
Very Important People by Ashley Mears; design by Amanda Weiss (Princeton University Press / May 2020)
Walking One Step at a Time by Erling Kagge; design by Linda Huang and Oliver Munday (Vintage / April 2020)
This reminded me Gerhard Richter’s blurry landscape paintings.
The hardcover was designed by Jenny Carrow.
Wicked Enchantment by Wanda Coleman; design by Rachel Willey (Black Sparrow Press / April 2020)
Published April 27, 2020
Book Covers of Note, April 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)
Barn 8 by Deb Olin Unferth; design by Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / March 2020)
The Beauty of Your Face by Sahat Mustafah; design by Grace Han (W.W. Norton / April 2020)
Becoming George Orwell by John Rodden; design by Monograph / Matt Avery; illustration by Lauren Nassef (Princeton University Press / February 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?
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd; design by Sara Wood (Viking / April 2020)
Los Falcón by Melissa Rivero; design by Adalis Martinez (Vintage Espanol / April 2020)
The cover of the English-language US edition published by Ecco last year was designed by Allison Saltzman with lettering by Boyoun Kim.
Godshot by Chelsea Bieker; design by Nicole Caputo (Catapult / March 2020)
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. :-)
Grief by 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.
Hinton by Mark Blacklock; design by Jamie Keenan (Granta / April 2020)
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke; cover art by Karl J Mountford (Chicken House / April 2020)
Mountford has also created covers for the other two books in the series, Inkspell and Inkdeath. I love these.
A Luminous Republic by Andrés Barba; design by Mark R. Robinson; illustration by Carly Miller (Mariner Books / April 2020)
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!
Misconduct of the Heart by Cordelia Strube; design by Michel Vrana (ECW Press / April 2020)
Sigh, Gone by Phuc Tran; design Henry Sene Yee (Flatiron Books / April 2020)
This is Shakespeare by Emma Smith; design by Linda Huang (Pantheon / March 2020)
Throat by Ellen van Neerven; by design by Design by Committee / Josh Durham (University of Queensland Press / April 2020)
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Published March 27, 2020
Book Covers of Note, March 2020
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)
Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang; design by Allison Saltzman; illustration by gg (Ecco / March 2020)
The Discomfort of the Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld; design by Pete Adlington (Faber & Faber / March 2020)
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo; design by Richard Bravery; illustration by Karan Singh (Penguin / March 2020)
I believe Penguin are reissuing Bernardine Evaristo’s backlist with similarly bold covers.
The hardcover of Girl, Woman, Other, also designed by Richard Bravery, features an illustration by Ali Campbell:
Heavy by Dan Franklin; design by Luke Bird (Constable / March 2020)
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor; design Jamie Keenan (New Directions / March 2020)
Inferno by Catherine Cho; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury / March 2020)
The Inland Sea by Madeleine Watts; design by Anna Morrison (Pushkin Press / March 2020)
I think this fits with the new psychedelia trend that I mentioned last year.
Ledger by Jane Hirshfield; design by John Gall (Knopf / March 2020)
My word, it’s good to have John Gall designing covers for Knopf again.
Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist; design by Paul Sahre (New Directions / March 2020)
Our Revolution by Honor Moore; design by Robin Bilardello (W. W. Norton / March 2020)
We Inherit What the Fires Left by William Evans; design by David Litman (Simon & Schuster / March 2020)
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Published March 20, 2020
Chip Kidd: Why Books Are Here to Stay
Here’s designer Chip Kidd talking about the enduring appeal of books for TED’s Small Thing Big Idea series:
I posted Chip’s 2012 TED Talk on book design here. But apparently he also did a talk on “the art of first impressions” in 2015 that I missed somehow:
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…
Published February 6, 2020
Matt Taylor’s le Carré Illustrations
I’m obviously on a bit of a John le Carré kick at the moment as I am currently reading his latest book Agent Running in the Field1. The cover features art by Matt Taylor who has illustrated a quite number of le Carré covers for Penguin Random House and art director Paul Buckley over years. I’ve shared a few of them here before, but since I posted David Pearson’s recent redesign of the George Smiley novels, I thought it would be nice to pull Matt’s versions together too. I believe Gregg Kulick had a hand in the design and type.
Matt has also illustrated the covers for le Carré’s non-Smiley novels too. There’s quite a lot of them!
A Delicate Truth illustration Matt Taylor 
The Naive and Sentimental Lover illustration Matt Taylor 
The Night Manager illustration Matt Taylor 
Our Game illustration Matt Taylor 
Our Kind of Traitor illustration Matt Taylor 
A Perfect Spy illustration Matt Taylor 
The Pigeon Tunnel illustration Matt Taylor 
A Small Town in Germany illustration Matt Taylor 
The Tailor of Panama illustration Matt Taylor
(Matt’s also did an illustration for The Russia House, but only the audio edition of the book appears to be available from Penguin Random House in the US. In the UK, Penguin uses the same illustration for their cover, although the type is in line with their other Modern Classic editions)
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Published January 31, 2020
Book Covers of Note, January 2020
A very quick post this month as it is almost next month (again)…
Agency by William Gibson; design by Gray318 (Berkley / January 2020)
Jon also designed the new cover for the Berkley reprint edition Gibson’s previous novel The Peripheral.
The cover of the UK edition of Agency, published by Viking this month, was designed by Chris Bentham:
The Art of War by Sun Tzu; design by Jaya Miceli (W. W. Norton / January 2020)
A Beautiful Crime by Christopher Bolen; design by Milan Bozic (HarperCollins / January 2020)
Cleanness by Garth Greenwell; design by Thomas Colligan; photograph by Jack Davison (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / January 2020)
As I mentioned in my 2019 round-up, the cover of the UK edition, published by Picador this month, was designed by Ami Smithson and features black and white photograph by Mark McKnight.
Dark Mother Earth by Kristian Novak; design by Kimberly Glyder (Amazon Crossing / January 2020)
Follow Me To Ground by Sue Rainsford; design by Jaya Miceli; collage by Toon Joosen (Scribner / January 2019)
The cover of the UK edition, published by Transworld last year, was designed by Beci Kelly.
The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson; design by Leo Nickolls (Katherine Tegen Books / January 2020)
Leo also designed the covers to the previous books in the series…
Long Bright River by Liz Moore; design by Gregg Kulick (Riverhead / January 2020)
Oligarchy by Scarlett Thomas; design by Kelly Winton (Counterpoint / January 2020)
The cover of the UK edition, published by Canongate this month, was design by Gray318:
Small Days and Nights by Tishani Doshi; design by Sarahmay Wilkinson (W. W. Norton / January 2020)
Threshold by Rob Doyle; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury / January 2020)
Greg also designed the covers for This is the Ritual and Here Are the Young Men by Rob Doyle:
Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener; design by Rodrigo Corral (MCD / January 2020)
Walk the Wild With Me by Rachel Atwood; design by Leo Nickolls (DAW / December 2019)
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings; design by Kimberly Glyder (Scribner / January 2020)
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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 January 6, 2020
Notable YA Covers of 2019
I always feel a bit guilty about this post. Readers seem to like it, but I don’t actually see a lot of young adult books day-to-day, so I am far too reliant on the covers people put in front of me to make it a really representative list. To make matters worse, it is now very late and very rushed. Nevertheless, there are some really great YA (and middle-grade!) covers here that I wanted to share. Feel free to tell me about all the ones I missed in the comments! Happy New Year!
All American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie Courtney; design by Cassie Gonzales; illustration by Carmi Grau (Farrar Straus & Giroux BYR / November 2019)
All the Bad Apples by Moïra Fowley-Doyle; design by Lindsey Andrews; photograph by Ines Rehberger (Kathy Dawson / October 2019)
The Arrival of Someday by Jen Malone; design by Jessie Gang; art by Sophia Drevenstam; lettering by Molly Jacques (HarperTeen / June 2019)
The Beholder by Anna Bright; design Michelle Taormina; art by Vault49 (HarperTeen / July 2019)
Brief Chronicle of Another Stupid Heartbreak by Adi Alsaid; design by Bora Tekogul (Inkyard Press / April 2019)
Butterfly Yellow by Thanhhà Lại; design Jenna Stempel-Lobell; art by Xuan Loc Xuan (HarperCollins / September 2019)
Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi; design by Richard Deas, Mallory Grigg, and Kathleen Breitenfeld; art by Sarah Jones (Henry Holt / December 2019)
Courting Darkness by Robin LaFevers; design Whitney Leader-Picone; art by Billelis (HMH Books for Young Readers / February 2019)
The Dark Lord Clementine by Sarah Jean Horwitz; design Carla Weise; art Michelle Lamoreaux (Algonquin Young Readers / October 2019)
The Exact Opposite of Okay by Laura Steven; design Jenna Stempel-Lobell (HarperTeen / June 2019)
The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe; design Michelle Cunningham; art by Christina Allen (Balzer & Bray / January 2019)
Forward Me Back to You by Mitali Perkins; design by Cassie Gonzales; illustration by Christian Northeast (Farrar Straus & Giroux BYR / April 2019)
Frankly in Love by David Yoon; design by Owen Gildersleeve (G. P. Putnam / September 2019)
The Girl the Sea Gave Back by Adrienne Young; design by Kerri Resnick; art by Larry Rostant (Wednesday Books / September 2019)
Girls on the Verge by Sharon Biggs Waller; design by Katie Klimowicz; lettering by The Letterettes (Henry Holt / April 2020)
Good Enough by Jen Petro-Roy; design by Liz Dresner; cover art by art Romy Blümel (Feiwel & Friends / February 2019)
The Grace Year by Kim Liggett; design by Kerri Resnick; illustration Hsiao Ron Cheng (Wednesday Books / October 2019)
The Great Unknowable End by Kathryn Ormsbee; design by Chloe Foglia; illustration by Carolina Rodriguez Fuenmayor; lettering by Danielle Davis (Simon & Schuster / March 2019)
Heroine by Mindy McGinnis; design by Erin Fitzsimmons (Katherine Tegen Books / March 2019)
Hold Still by Nina LaCour; design Samira Iravani; cover art by Adams Carvalho (Penguin / February 2019)
How to Make Friends with the Dark by Kathleen Glasgow; design Jennifer Heuer; art by Anders Rokkum (Delacorte / April 2019)
I Hope You Get This Message by Farah Naz Rishi; design by Erin Fitzsimmons; illustration by Adams Carvalho (HarperTeen / October 2019)
Hurricane Season by Nicole Melleby; design Carla Weise; art by David Litchfield (Algonquin / May 2019)
King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo; design by Ellen Duda; art by Billelis (Imprint / January 2019)
The Kingdom by Jess Rothenberg; design Helen Crawford-White (Macmillan / July 2019)
Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron; design by Jenna Stempel-Lobell; art by Adeyemi Adegbesan (HarperTeen / September 2019)
Last Meeting of the Gorilla Club by Sara Nickerson; design Maria Fazio; illustration by Maeve Norton (Dutton Books for Young Readers / August 2019)
Let’s Call it a Doomsday by Katie Henry; design by David Curtis (Katherine Tegen / August 2019)
Maximillian Fly by Angie Sage; design David Curtis; art by Red Nose Studio (Katherine Tegen / July 2019)
Merrybegot by Julie Hearn; design and illustration by Karl James Mountford (Oxford University Press / April 2019)
The Missing Season by Gillian French; design David Curtis (HarperTeen / May 2019)
Nocturna by Maya Motayne; design by Aurora Parlagreco and Jenna Stempel-Lobell; art by Mark Van Leeuwen (Balzer & Bray / May 2019)
Of Ice and Shadows by Audrey Coulthurst; design Michelle Taormina; art by Yippiehey (Balzer & Bray / August 2019)
Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga; design Jenna Stempel-Lobell ; art by Anoosha Syed (Balzer & Bray / May 2019)
Permanent Record by Mary H. K. Choi; design by Lizzy Bromley; illustration by gg (Simon & Schuster / September 2019)
Romanov by Nadine Brandes; design by Faceout Studio / Jeff Miller (Thomas Nelson / May 2019)
A Question of Holmes by Brittany Cavallaro; design by Katie Fitch; art by Dan Funderburgh (Katherine Tegen / March 2019)
Shadows of Winterspell by Amy Wilson; design Helen Crawford-White (Macmillan / JOctober 2019)
Six Goodbyes We Never Sent by Candace Ganger; design Kerri Resnick; illustration by Cannaday Chapman (Wednesday Books / September 2019)
The Speed of Falling Objects by Nancy Richardson Fischer; design Kai & Sunny (Inkyard Press / October 2019)
The Starlight Watchmaker by Lauren James; design by Helen Crawford-White (Barrington Stoke / July 2019)
The Strangers by Margaret Peterson Haddix; design Aurora Parlagreco; art by Anne Lambelet (Katherine Tegen / April 2019)
This Might Hurt A Bit by Doogie Horner; design by Sarah Creech; illustration by Adams Carvalho (Simon Pulse / June 2019)
The Tiger at Midnight by Swati Teerdhala; design by David Curtis; art by Michael Marsicano (Katherine Tegen / April 2019)
The Waking Forest by Alyssa Wees; design Leo Nickolls (Delacorte / March 2019)
We Are the Lost and Found by Helene Dunbar; design Nicole Hower; illustration by Adams Carvalho (Sourcebooks / September 2019)
We the Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia; design by Molly Fehr; art by Cristina Pagnoncelli (Katherine Tegen / February 2019)
Wilder Girls by Rory Power; design by Regina Flath; art by Aykut Aydogdu (Delacorte / July 2019)
With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo; design by Erin Fitzsimmons; art by Erick Davila (HarperTeen / May 2019)
York: Clockwork Ghost by Laura Ruby; design by Aurora Parlagreco; art Jie Ma (Walden Pond / June 2019)
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Published December 11, 2019
Notable Book Covers of 2019
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?
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood and Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid were inescapable this year.
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 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.
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.
The Affairs of the Falcóns by Melissa Rivero; design Allison Saltzman; lettering Boyoun Kim (Ecco / April 2019)
Also designed by Allison Saltzman:
All the Lives We Ever Lived by Katharine Smyth; design by Michael Morris (Crown / January 2019)
Aug 9 — Fog by Kathryn Scanlan; design by Na Kim (Farrar Straus & Giroux MCD / June 2019)
Also designed by Na Kim:
Baron Wenkheim’s Homecoming by László Krasznahorkai ; design by Paul Sahre (New Directions / September 2019)
Berta Isla by Javier Marías; design by Kelly Blair (Knopf / August 2019)
Also designed by Kelly Blair:
Big Bang by David Bowman; design by Jamie Keenan (Corsair / August 2019)
Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James; design Helen Yentus; art by Pablo Gerardo Camacho (Riverhead / February 2019)
Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant by Joel Golby; design by Linda Huang (Anchor / March 2019)
The cover of the UK edition, published by HarperCollins imprint Mudlark in February, was designed by Bill Bragg and is also very good:
The Case Against Reality by Donald Hoffman; design by Sarahmay Wilkinson (W. W. Norton / August 2019)
Also designed by Sarahmay Wilkinson:
Categorically Famous by Guy Davidson; design by Michel Vrana (Stanford University Press / June 2019)
Also designed by Michel Vrana:
The Colonel’s Wife by Rosa Liksom; design by Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / December 2019)
Also designed by Kimberly Glyder:
Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer; design Rodrigo Corral (MCD / December 2019)
Also designed by Rodrigo Corral:
Doxology by Nell Zink; design Jack Smyth (Fourth Estate / August 2019)
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk; design by Alex Merto (Riverhead / August 2019)
Driving in Cars with Homeless Men by Kate Wisel; design Catherine Casalino (University of Pittsburgh Press / October 2019)
Also designed by Catherine Casalino:
The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg; design by Pablo Delcan (New Directions / July 2019)
Also designed by Pablo Delcan:
The Dutch House by Ann Patchet; design by Robin Bilardello; painting by Noah Saterstrom (HarperCollins / September 2019)
Even That Wildest Hope by Seyward Goodhand; design by Megan Fildes (Invisible Books / September 2019)
The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada; design by Janet Hansen; photography by Arthur Woodcroft (New Directions / October 2019)
Also designed by Janet Hansen:
The Five by Hallie Rubenhold; design by Jo Thomson (Transworld / February 2019)
Follow Me To Ground by Sue Rainsford; design and illustration Beci Kelly (Transworld / August 2019)
Follow This Thread by Henry Eliot; design by Elena Giavaldi (Three Rivers Press / March 2019)
Holy Lands by Amanda Sthers; design by Tree Abraham (Bloomsbury / January 2019)
Also designed by Tree Abraham:
Humiliation by Paulina Flores; design by Nicole Caputo (Catapult / November 2019)
Also designed by Nicole Caputo:
Indelible in the Hippocampus by Shelly Oria; design by Sunra Thompson (MacSweeney’s / September 2019)
Lanny by Max Porter; design by Jonny Pelham (Faber & Faber / March 2019)
Learning from the Germans by Susan Neiman; design by Tom Etherington (Allen Lane / August 2019)
Tom Etherington is also the designer of Penguin magazine The Happy Reader:
Life Support by Julia Copus; design by Helen Crawford-White (Head of Zeus / April 2019)
The Light That Failed by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes; design by Richard Green (Allen Lane / October 2019)
Malina by Ingeborg Bachman; design by Peter Mendelsund (New Directions / June 2019)
Mind Fixers by Anne Harrington; design by Matt Dorfman (W.W. Norton / April 2019)
Mothers by Chris Power; design by Grace Han (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / January 2019)
Also designed by Grace Han:
Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin; design by Stephen Brayda (Riverhead / January 2019)
Muscle by Alan Trotter; design by Gray318 (Faber & Faber / February 2019)
Also designed by Gray318:
Never a Lovely So Real by Colin Asher; design by Jonathan Bush (W. W. Norton / April 2019)
Not Working by Josh Cohen; design by Matthew Young (Granta / January 2019)
Also designed by Matthew Young:
One Day by Gene Weingarten; design by David Litman (Blue Rider / October 2019)
Also designed by David Litman:
Our Women on the Ground edited by Zahra Hankir; design by Rosie Palmer; hand lettering by Lily Jones (Harvill Secker / August 2019)
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson; design by Jaya Miceli (Riverhead / September 2019)
Also designed by Jaya Miceli:
Safe Houses I Have Known by Steve Healey; design by Alban Fischer (Coffee House Press / September 2019)
Also designed by Alban Fischer:
Say Say Say by Lila Savage; design by Jennifer Carrow (Knopf / July 2019)
Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke; design by Anne Jordan & Mitch Goldstein (Open Letter Books / December 2019)
Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / August 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…
Turbulence by David Szalay; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Scribner / July 2019)
The Unwanted by Michael Dobbs; design by Tyler Comrie (Knopf / April 2019)
Also designed by Tyler Comrie:
The Volunteer by Salvatore Scibona; design by Rachel Willey (Penguin / March 2019)
Also designed by Rachel Willey:
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates; design Greg Mollica; art Calida Garcia Rawles (One World / September 2019)
The White Death by Gabriel Urza; design by Joan Wong (Nouvella / June 2019)
A Year Without a Name by Cyrus Grace Dunham; design by Lucy Kim (Little Brown & Co. / October 2019)
