elena giavaldi – Page 2 – The Casual Optimist

Published October 7, 2015

Book Covers of Note October 2015

A little bit later than scheduled, here is my October selection of book covers. There are three from Verso, and two by James Paul Jones, but I think it’s still another month of interesting, diverse, and eclectic work. I hope you agree…

Anything You Want design Zoe Norvell

Anything You Want by Derek Sivers; design by Zoe Norvell (Portfolio / September 2015)

Beatlebone design Rafi Romaya
Beatlebone by Kevin Barry; design by Rafi Romaya (Canongate / October 2015)

Beauty is a Wound design John Gall
Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan; design by John Gall (New Directions / September 2015)

Best American Non-Required design Eric Nyquist
The Best American Non-Required Reading 2015; cover art by Eric Nyquist (Mariner / October 2015 )

Black Earth by Timothy Snyder (US); design by Darren Haggar (Penguin Random House / September 2015)

Black Earth by Timothy Snyder (UK); design by Suzanne Dean; photograph Alex Majoli / picture research Lily Richards (The Bodley Head / September 2015)

The US cover, designed by Darren Haggar is on the left; the UK cover designed by Suzanne Dean is on the right.

Bream Gives Me Hiccups design Jean Jullien
Bream Gives Me Hiccups design by Jean Jullien (Grove Atlantic / September 2015)

9780307701534
Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry by Paul Goldberger; design by Peter Mendelsund (Knopf / September 2015)

The Double Life of Liliane by Lily Tuck; design by Abby Weintraub (Grove Atlantic / September 2015)

(I was raving about this cover on Twitter no so long ago. It really needs to be seen in person because the image doesn’t do it justice at all. The finish on the jacket is lovely and gives the design a beautiful nuance and subtlety)

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff; design by Rodrigo Corral and Adalis Martinez (Riverhead / September 2015 )

Dream Factory design Jim Stoddart
The Great British Dream Factory by Dominic Sandbrook; design by Jim Stoddart (Allen Lane / October 2015)

Killing and Dying by Adrian Tomine; cover art and design by Adrian Tomine (Drawn & Quarterly / October 2015)

Laurus design Gray318
Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin; design Gray318 (Oneworld / October 2015)

Music mfor Wartime design Lynn Buckley
Music for Wartime by Rebecca Makkai; design by Lynn Buckley (Viking / June 2015)

Negroland design by Oliver Munday
Negroland by Margo Jefferson; design by Oliver Munday (Pantheon / September 2015)

Nest design Jon Klassen
The Nest by Kenneth Oppel; cover art by Jon Klassen (Simon & Schuster / October 2015 )

No Such Thing as a Free Gift design James Paul Jones
No Such Thing as a Free Gift by Linsey McGoey; design by James Paul Jones (Verso / October 2015)

Only Forward design Stuart Bache
Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith; design by Stuart Bache (HarperCollins / May 2015)

Paulina and Fran illustration Kaethe Butcher typography Nina LoSchiavo
Paulina and Fran by Rachel B. Glaser; illustration Kaethe Butcher; typography Nina LoSchiavo (Harper Perennial / September 2015)

PawPaw design by Kimberly Glyder
PawPaw by Andrew Moore; design by Kimberly Glyder (Chelsea Green / September 2015 )

Rise of the Novel design by James Paul Jones

The Rise of the Novel by Ian Watt; design by James Paul Jones (Vintage / October 2015)

Scorper design by Dan Mogford
Scorper by Rob Magnuson Smith; design by Dan Mogford; illustration by John Vernon Lord (Granta / October)

Season of Trouble design by David Gee
The Seasons of Trouble by Rohini Mohan; design by David A. Gee (Verso / October 2015)

Trans Design and illustration Joanna Walsh
Trans by Juliet Jacques; Design and illustration by Joanna Walsh (Verso / September 2015)

Comments closed

Published April 7, 2014

Centred Concentric Circles — It’s a Thing

kino

This post actually started life on (one of) my other blog(s). I noticed a couple of rather similar looking covers that used a circle motif, but at the time I was sure I was missing at least one other cover. As it turned out, I was thinking of the cover of Who Owns the Future by Jaron Lanier which is out in paperback this month. I hadn’t realised that it was a riff on an earlier Jaron Lanier cover. Then I was reminded of James Paul Jones‘s cover design for Black Moon by Kenneth Calhoun, published last month. AND then I remembered Jamie Keenan’s cover design for Kino by Jürgen Fauth from a couple of years ago (Atticus Books April 2012), which is a bit different but still uses concentric circles.

Anyway, here is an updated version of that post. I know the cover of My Life in Middlemarch was designed by Elena Giavaldi. I don’t know who designed the others. Sorry. Please leave a comment if you can help with attribution, or you can think of any other covers that fit the pattern…

you-are-not-a-gadget
You are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier; design Stefanie Posavec (Penguin February 2011)

who-owns-the-future
Who Owns the Future by Jaron Lanier (Penguin April 2014)

The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway; design by Nick Misani (Plume March 2014)

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

9781620403112
The Man Who Walked Away by Maud Casey; design by Natalie Slocum (Bloomsbury March 2014)

9781781090145
Black Moon by Kenneth Calhoun; design by James Paul Jones (Hogarth March 2014)

UPDATE:

The North American cover design for the new David Mitchell is too on-trend to ignore:

the-bone-clocks-mitchell
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell; design by Peter Mendelund and Oliver Munday (Random House September 2014)

And I rather like this as well:

9780765374240
The Time Traveler’s Almanac edited by Ann Vandermeer & Jeff Vandermeer; design by Will Staehle (Tor Books March 2014)

UPDATE 2:

Although this isn’t vertically centred, the cover to A Deeper Sense of Place (Oregon State University Press November 1 2013) seems like it belongs here, as much for the colour palette as anything. The design, which pre-dates most of the covers here, is by David Drummond.

Doern art

Also not quite centred vertically, but most definitely ahead of the curve (as it were), is Michel Vrana‘s design for Death Sentences by Kawamata Chiaki (University of Minnesota Press February 2012):

death-sentences

8 Comments

Published February 27, 2014

Recent Covers of Note February 2014 Edition

It’s almost March and I’ve just realised that I haven’t posted very many book covers this year. To make up for this lapse, here are ten of my favourite covers from the last few months:

all-our-names
All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu; design by Isabel Urbina Peña