Books, Design and Culture
The brilliant John Gall has designed a wonderful set of minimal book covers for Theater Communications Group’s Russian drama series:
A Month in the Country by Ivan Turgenev (Theatre Group Communications / February 2015)
The Inspector by Nikolai Gogol (Theatre Group Communications / June 2015)
The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov (Theatre Group Communications / August 2015)
Turning the picture sideways is not exactly new (the brilliant John Gall and Paul Sahre1 were experimenting with it years ago), but there has been a spate of commercial covers making use of images rotated through ninety degrees in the past couple of years. It seems like a such peculiar thing to have caught on, and yet here we are:
California by Edan Lepucki; design Julianna Lee (Little Brown & Co. July 2014)
The Empty Chair by Bruce Wagner; design by Gregg Kulick (Blue Rider Press / December 2013)
The Girl in the Moonlight by Charles Dubow; design by Mumtaz Mustafa; painting by Horacio G. Garcia (William Morrow / May 2015)
Green on Blue by Elliot Ackerman; design by Oliver Munday & Jaya Miceli (Scribner / February 2015)
I Saw a Man by Owen Sheers; design by Emily Mahon; photograph by Mike Lambert (Nan A. Talese / June 2015)
Sugar by Deirdre Riordan Hall; design by M. S. Corley (Skyscape / June 2015)
Waiting for the Apocalypse by Veronica Chater; design by Kimberly Glyder (W. W. Norton / February 2009)
We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas; design by Christopher Lin (Simon & Schuster / August 2014)
Just fantastic interview with book designer and art director John Gall at The Great Discontent:
I find it hard to think about design in terms of changing the world, but it’s important to think about design in terms of the decisions you make about what you make. Ask yourself: “What am I putting out into the world? Am I helping sell Big Macs or deodorant or iPhones or whatever?” I have nothing against any of those, but at some point in my life, I decided to focus on books. Books are intrinsically good: even the worst book—with some notable exceptions—isn’t truly bad. If people are reading, it is good. As designers, we’re attached to the selling of something; no matter what we’re making there is a selling component. In that sense, the decision to work with books was very much about the larger picture of what I was helping to usher into the world.
I talked to John about his collages waaaaaay back in 2011.
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Book designers, bless them, really do like to put a bird on it. Following on from wild beasts and reptiles and amphibians, here is my latest post looking at animals on book covers, ‘Birds’:
Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer; design by Charlotte Strick; Illustration by Eric Nyquist (FSG / September 2014)
Because I Love you by Barbara Toner; design by Sandy Cull / gogoGingko (Allen & Unwin / November 2012)
The Bedside Book of Birds by Graeme Gibson; design by Scott Richardson (Random House / October 2005)
The Bird Catcher by Laura Jacobs; design by LeeAnn Falciani (Picador / September 2010)
Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières; design by Matt Broughton (Vintage / April 2014)
Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb; design by David Mann (Allen Lane / May 2007)
A Box of Birds by Charles Fernyhough; design by Dan Mogford (Unbound / May 2013)
Cartwheel by Jennifer duBois; design by Lynn Buckley (Random House / September 2013)
Civil and Civic by Jonathan Bennett; design by David Gee (ECW / April 2011)
Come Late to the Love of Birds by Sandra Kasturi; design by Erik Mohr (Tightrope Books)
The Coincidence Authority by J. W. Ironmonger; design by Nathan Burton (Weidenfeld & Nicolson / September 2013)
The Crow’s Vow by Susan Briscoe; design by David Drummond (Vehicule Press / April 2011)
Darwin’s Finches edited by Kathleen Donohue; design by Matt Avery (University of Chicago Press / June 2011)
Don’t Let It End Like This Tell Them I Said Something by Paul Vermeersch; design by Natalie Olsen / Kisscut Design (ECW Press / October 2014)
The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft; design by Coralie Bickford-Smith (Penguin Classics / October 2008)
Early Bird by Rodney Rothman; design by Paul Sahre (Simon & Schuster / April 2005)
Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm by Philip Pullman; design by Alison Forner (Penguin / November 2012)
Floating Like the Dead by Yasuko Thanh; design by Terri Nimmo (McClelland & Stewart / April 2012 )
Florence & Giles by John Harding; design by Jo Walker (Blue Door / March 2010)
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen; design by Charlotte Strick (FSG / December 2010)
The Galapagos by Henry Nicholls; design by Nicole Caputo (Basic Books / August 2014)
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt; design by Keith Hayes (Little, Brown & Co. / October 2013)
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck; illustration by Kathryn McNaughton (Penguin / October 2011)
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald; cover art by Christopher Wormell (Jonathan Cape / July 2014)
Grunt of the Minotaur by Robin Richardson; design by Emmanuel Polanco (Insomniac Press / October 2011)
A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout & Sara Corbett; design by Jennifer Heuer (Scribner / September 2013)
Hunger by Lan Samantha Chang; design by David High (W. W. Norton / September 2009)
Jenny and the Jaws of Life by Jincy Willett; design by Henry Sene Yee (Picador / June 2008)
Kansas City Lightning by Stanley Crouch; design by Milan Bozic (HarperCollins / March 2014)
Klauw van de valk by Wilbur Smith; design by Mark Ecob (Xander Uitgervers / unused)
Love & Hunger by Charlotte Wood; design by Sandy Cull /gogoGingko (Allen & Unwin / May 2012)
The Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh; design by Matt Broughton (Vintage / January 2009)
The Marrowbone Marble Company by Glenn Taylor; design by Allison Saltzman (Ecco / May 2010)
Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith; design by Mark Ecob (Abacus / December 2003)
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius; design by Emily Mahon; illustration by Yucel (Modern Library / August 2003)
The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham; illustration by Brian Cronin (Penguin / August 2008)
The Mind of a Thief by Patti Miller; design by Sandy Cull / gogoGingko; illustration by Cherie Strong (University of Queensland Press / October 2013)
Mink River by Brian Doyle; design by David Drummond (Oregon State University Press / October 2010)
Monstress by Lysley Tenorio; design by Alison Forner (Ecco / January 2012)
Naming Nature by Carol Kaesuk Yoon; design by Chin-Yee Lai (W. W. Norton / August 2009)
Never-Ending Birds by David Baker; design by Lynn Buckley; jacket illustration: Swallows by Audubon, The Granger Collection (W. W. Norton / October 2009)
News from the World by Paula Fox; design by Roberto De Vicq de Cumptich (W. W. Norton / May 2011)
The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin; design by Emily Mahon; illustration by Eleanor Grosch (Modern Library / August 1998)
Pigeon by Karen Solie; design by Bill Douglas (House of Anansi / June 2009)
Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman; design by Holly MacDonald (Bloomsbury / July 2011)
Romeo Spikes by Joanne Reay; design by Chris Sergio ( Gallery Books / August 2012)
Raven Girl by Audrey Niffenegger; design by Sara Corbett; illustration Audrey Niffenegger (Harry N. Abrams / May 2013)
Silent Land by Graham Joyce; design by Emily Mahon (Doubleday / March 2011)
Solo by Rana Dasgupta; design by Heads of State (Houghton Mifflin / February 2011)
Sweet Bird of Youth by Tennessee Williams; design by John Gall (New Directions / June 2010)
3 Elegies for Kosovo by Ismail Kadare; design by Matt Broughton (Vintage / May 2011)
To See Every Bird on Earth by Dan Koeppel; illustration by Mike Langman (Michael Joseph / August 2005) 1
Summer and Bird by Katherine Catmull; illustration by Jason Holley (Dutton / October 2012)
The Swan Gondola by Timothy Schaffert; design by Alex Merto (Riverhead / February 2014)
Treachery by S. J. Parris; design by Alexandra Allden, illustration by Daren Newman (Harper / August 2014)
The Virtues of Poetry by James Longenbach; design by Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / March 2013)
The Vulture by Gil Scott-Heron; design by Stuart Bache (Canongate / July 2010)
Why is my Mother Getting a Tattoo? by Jancee Dunn; design by Catherine Casalino (Villard Books / June 2009)
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by David Shafer; design by Charles Brock / Faceout Studios (Mulholland Books / August 2014)
Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o; design by Peter Mendelsund (Pantheon / August 2006)
Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my! I’m kicking off a new series today on animal book covers. The first post is on ‘beasts’ — mostly ‘wild’ beasts, but one or two more domesticated (and dead) animals may have nosed their way in. Other posts series will look at birds, bugs, reptiles and amphibians, and quite possibly sea creatures and farm animals (unless someone pays me a large amount of money to stop before that). Thanks to all the designers, ADs, publicists and others who have been helping me with images and credits. If you notice that some information about a cover is missing, please let me know.
American Spirit by Dan Kennedy; design by Gabrielle Bordwin (New Harvest / May 2013)
Animals of My Own Kind by Harry Thurston; design by David Drummond (Vehicule Press / April 2010)
Annabel by Kathleen Winter; design by Bill Douglas (Anansi / June 2010)
Beasts! by Jacob Covey; design by Jacob Covey / Unflown (Fantagraphics / February 2007)
The Bedside Book of Beasts by Graeme Gibson; design by Scott Richardson (Doubleday Canada / October 2009)
Brothers & Beasts edited Kate Bernheimer; design by Isaac Tobin; illustration by Lauren Nassef (Wayne State University Press / January 2008)
Caribou by Charles Wright; design by Jeff Clark / Quemadura (FSG / March 2014)
Charm and Strange by Stephanie Kuehn; design by Sharon King-Chai (Electric Monkey / June 2013)
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem; design by Miriam Rosenbloom (Faber & Faber / December 2009)
Company of Liars by Karen Maitland; design by gray318 (Penguin / January 2008)
Doppler by Erlend Loe; design by Nicolas Cheetham (Anansi / October 2012)
Eeeee Eee Eeee by Tao Lin; design by Kelly Blair (Melville House / April 2007)
The Extinction Club by Jeffrey Moore; design by Michel Vrana (Hamish Hamilton Canada / April 2010)
Feral by George Monbiot; design by Jim Stoddart (Penguin / May 2013)
The Good Suicides by Antonio Hill; design by Christopher Brand (Crown / June 2014)
Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia by Mariusz Szczygiel; design by Christopher King (Melville House / May 2014)
Goya’s Dog by Damian Tarnopolsky; design by David Gee (Penguin Canada / August 2007)
Hope A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander; design by John Gall (Riverhead Books / January 2012)
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle; design by Emily Mahon; illustration by SHOUT (Modern Library / October 2002)
Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle; design by Coralie Bickford-Smith; illustration by Despotica (Penguin / March 2008)
How I Came to Haunt My Parents by Natalee Caple; design by David Gee (ECW / May 2011)
Hunger by Lincoln Townley; design by Matt Johnson (Simon & Schuster / May 2014)
Jaguars and Electric Eels by Alexander Von Humboldt; design by David Pearson; illustration by Victoria Sawdon (Penguin / February 2007)
Knife Throwing Through Self-Hypnosis by Robin Richardson; design by Natalie Olsen / Kisscut Design (ECW / September 2013)
Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch; design by gray318 (Canongate / March 2011)
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling; design by Alice Stevenson (Penguin India / 2014)
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa; illustration by Hans Tillman (Vintage / September 2007)
Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith; design by Mark Ecob (Abacus / August 2003)
Me and the Devil by Nick Tosches; design by Keith Hayes (Little Brown & Co / December 2012)
Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi design by Helen Yentus with Jason Booher (Riverhead / September 2011)
Morning in the Burned House by Margaret Atwood; design by Kelly Hill (McClelland & Stewart / September 2009)
Natural Acts by David Quammen; design by John Fulbrook III (W. W. Norton / May 2009)
The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane; design by Charlotte Strick; illustration by Ariana Nehmad Ross (Faber & Faber / October 2013)
Off Course by Michelle Huneven; design by Rodrigo Corral; photograph by Gregori Maiofis (FSG / March 2014)
The Orphan Masters Son by Adam Johnson; design by Lynn Buckley (Random House / January 2012)
Panther by David Owen; design by gray318 (Constable and Robinson / May 2015)
Pastoralia by George Saunders; design by Rodrigo Corral (Riverhead / June 2001)
The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson; design by Matt Dorfman (Riverhead / December 2011)
Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow; design by Susan Dean; illustration Natasha Michaels (William Heinemann / August 2007)
A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright; design by Bill Douglas (Anansi / October 2004)
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel; design by Nathan Burton (Picador / September 2014)
Stories II by T. C. Boyle; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury / October 2013)
The Tattooed Soldier by Hector Tobar; design by Jim Tierney (Picador / October 2014)
Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt; Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich (Dial Press / June 2012)
This Book Will Save Your Life by A. M. Homes; design by Paul Buckley (Penguin / April 2007)
Tigers in Eden by Chris Flynn; design by W.H. Chong (Text Publishing Co. / October 2013)
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht; design by James Paul Jones; illustration Wuon Gean Ho (Phoenix / March 2011)
Tooth and Claw by T. C. Boyle; design by Paul Buckley (Penguin / September 2005)
The Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland; design by Keith Hayes (Algonquin Books / May 2014)
The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma; design by Alison Forner (Penguin / March 2014)
Wolves by Simon Ings; design and Illustration by Jeffrey Alan Love (Gollancz / January 2014)
It started, innocently enough, with a tweet from my friend Steven Beattie, book review editor of Canada’s Quill & Quire magazine, about the cover of The Most Dangerous Book, Kevin Birmingham’s new ‘biography’ of Ulysses by James Joyce, designed by Ben Wiseman (Penguin June 2014).
That sparked a conversation with designer David Gee and Joseph Sullivan of The Book Design Review about books on book covers. Joe wrote a a post on the subject in 2009 on the subject, and I rather naïvely thought it would be easy (EASY!) to post a few contemporary examples of the trend, completely underestimating what an undertaking such a project would become.
What follows is an attempt to showcase some of different ways designers incorporate books into their cover designs. Along side covers from the past five years, I’ve included some earlier examples from Joe’s post, and this post about ‘meta-covers’ from HTML Giant. Many of the images of the older titles are small (and some are just not very good), but where I have been able to source a larger image, I’ve included it at full (or close to full) size. I’m indebted to the Book Cover Archive, which is still an invaluable resources after all this time, Ferran Lopez‘s (also mothballed) Jacket Museum, and all the designers and book folk who sent me cover images, and helped me in numerous other ways. Thank you. This isn’t comprehensive survey but, to be honest, I had to stop somewhere…
Seven Hundred Penguins; design David Pearson / illustration Clare Skeats (Penguin Sept 2007)
Cover by Peter Mendelsund; design by Peter Mendelsund (powerHouse Books August 2014)
Kapitalismus und Hautkrankheiten by Jasmin Ramadan; design by Books We Made (Klett-Cotta Verlag April 2014)
The Knowledge by Lewis Dartnell; design by Kris Potter (Penguin April 2014)
Priceless by William Poundstone; design by Jennifer Carrow (Hill & Wang January 2010)
Publish Your Photography Book by Darius D. Himes & Mary Virginia Swanson; design by David Chickey & Masumi Shibata (Princeton Architectural Press March 2011)
The Yarn Whisperer by Clara Parkes; design by John Gall (Abrams September 2013)
The Arsonist by Sue Miller; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury June 2014)
Best New Poets 2013, guest editor Brenda Shaughnessy; design by Atomicdust (Meridian January 2014)
Christine Falls by Benjamin Black; series design by Keith Hayes (Picador January 2008)
Half World by Scott O’Connor; design by Christopher Lin (Simon & Schuster February 2014)
Heaven is Small by Emily Schultz; design by Ingrid Paulson (House of Anansi )
(And if your not Canadian, you may not know that this is a riff on Ingrid’s design for the hardcover of Heaven is Small, featured in this list.)
The Keep by Jennifer Egan; design by John Gall (Knopf August 2006)
The Last Winter of Dani Lancing by P. D. Viner; design by Oliver Munday (Crown October 2013)
Mess; series art and design by Keri Smith (Penguin September 2010)
Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton; design by Matt Dorfman (Pantheon June 2012)
(This is what the cover looks like under the jacket if you’re curious)
Salinger by David Shields and Shane Salerno; design by Christopher Lin (Simon & Schuster September 2013)
What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton; design by Jamie Stafford-Hill (Tor January 2014)
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde; cover art by Thomas Allen, series design by Jaya Miceli (Penguin 2011)
And those of you with a good memory will remember Chip Kidd used also art by Thomas Allen for a series of James Ellroy titles publisher by Vintage in the US:
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury; design by Matt Owen (Simon & Schuster January 2012)
Fiction Ruined My Family by Jeanne Darst; design by Alex Merto (Riverhead September 2011)
The Most Dangerous Book by Kevin Birmingham; adapted from the US cover with additional design by Jessie Price (Head of Zeus June 2014)
Marcel Proust’s Search for Lost Time by Patrick Alexander; design by Jamie Keenan (Vintage March 2010)
The Real Made Up by Stephen Brockwell; design by David A. Gee (ECW October 2007)
Stoner by John Williams; design by Julia Connolly (Vintage July 2012)
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine; design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich (Grove April 2014)
And while it’s not an actual book, let’s give Tom Davie of studiotwentysix2 a round of applause for his famous novel redesign print (which you can buy here).
Book Was There by Andrew Piper; design by Andrea Guinn (University of Chicago Press November 2012)
Erotic Poems by E. E. Cummings; design by Gabriele Wilson (Liveright February 2010)
How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti; design by Rebecca Seltzer (Henry Holt & Co. June 2012)
A Journey with Two Maps by Eavan Boland; design by Chin-Yee Lai (W. W. Norton October 2011)
John Dies at the End by David Wong; design by Rob Grom (Thomas Dunne October 2009)
A Life in Books by Warren Lehrer; cover art by Warren Lehrer in collaboration with Jonathan Rosen (Goff Books October 2013)
The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan & Quentin Fiore; design by Yes Studio (Penguin September 2008)
A Most Dangerous Book by Christopher B. Krebs; design by Mark Melnick (W. W. Norton June 2011)
The Novel: A Biography by Michael Schmidt; design by Graciela Galup (Belknap Press April 2014)
Philology by James Turner; design by Kara Davison / Faceout Studio (Princeton University Press, May 2014)
The Pox and the Covenant by Tony Wilson; design by Jason Gabbert (Sourcebooks April 2010)
What to Look For in Winter by Candia McWilliam; design by Richard Ljoenes (Harper March 2012)
Where I’m Reading From by Tim Parks; design by James Paul Jones (Harvill Secker November 2014)
The World by Bill Gaston; design by Kathleen Lynch / Black Kat Design (Penguin August 2013)
Writers Between the Covers by Shannon McKenna Schmidt and Joni Rendon; design by Lucy Kim (Plume October 2013)
Penguin by Design by Phil Baines; design by David Pearson (Penguin May 2005)
Wormholes by John Fowles; design by Carin Goldberg (Little, Brown & Co. 1997)
Bad Teeth by Dustin Long; design by Rex Bonomelli (New Harvest May 2014)
The Broadview Introduction to Literature; series design by Michel Vrana (Broadview August 2013)
First Novel by Nicholas Royle; design by Suzanne Dean (Jonathan Cape February 2014)
How To Be A Heroine by Samantha Ellis; designed by James Paul Jones (Chatto & Windus January 2014)
How to Read Literature by Terry Eagleton; design uncredited1 (Yale University Press Jun 2013)
The Junior Officers’ Reading Club by Patrick Hennessey; design by David Wardle (Penguin June 2009)
Ajax Penumbra 1969 by Robin Sloan; design by Irene Pineda (Atlantic Books June 2014)
The Rise & Fall of the Great Powers by Tom Rachman; design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich (Dial June 2014)
Stoner by John Williams; design by Julia Connolly (Vintage November 2013)
Vagina by Emma L. E. Rees; design by Alice Marwick (Bloomsbury August 2013)
Why I Read by Wendy Lesser; design by Rodrigo Corral (Farrar, Straus & Giroux (January 2014)
The Year of Henry James by David Lodge; design by Nathan Burton (Vintage May 2014)
The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller; design by Jo Walker (Fourth Estate May 2014)
And then there’s this…
You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier; design by Olly Moss (Penguin January 2010)
Another month, another selection of beautiful book covers…
The Axeman’s Jazz by Ray Celestin; design by Jo Thomson (Mantle May 2014)
The Bees by Laline Paull; design by Steve Attardo (Ecco May 2014)
Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige; design by Ray Shapell (HarperCollins April 2014)
Enlightenment 2.0 by Joseph Heath; design by David A. Gee (HarperCollins April 2014)
Goodbye To All That by Robert Graves; design by Matthew Young (Penguin May 2014)
Karate Chop by Dorthe Nors; design by Carol Hayes (Graywolf February 2014)
Lunch at the Shop: The Art and Practice of the Midday Meal by Peter Miller; design by John Gall (Abrams April 2014)
The One and Only by Emily Giffin; design by Jennifer Heuer (Ballantine May 2014)
The Other Language by Francesca Marciano; design by Ben Wiseman (Pantheon April 2014)
Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell) by Jane McAlevey; design by Gray318 (Verso Books May 2014)
Vanishing by Gerard Woodward; design by Jamie Keenan (Picador UK March 2014)
Young Skins: Stories by Colin Barrett; design by James Paul Jones (Jonathan Cape March 2014)
I decided to go in a slightly different direction with my covers list this year (see my lists for 2012, 2011, and 2010). It’s just a straight up list of the fifty covers designs with a few annotations and links a long the way. I’m sorry for woeful under-representation of Australian and NZ designers, and for completely ignoring the entire non-English-speaking world. I will try and do better in 2014. But until then, here, in alphabetical order, are my fifty covers of 2013:
33 CommentsFor the past couple of years now (since Joseph Sullivan put the Book Design Review on ice in fact), I’ve been posting a short list of my favourite covers for books for the year. Now that thing for the New York Times is out of the way, I’m free to post my list for 2012.
To make a couple of very general observations about book design this year, the cover that probably made the greatest impact was Fifty Shades of Gray. It was a design that made it OK to read erotica in public, something which surely contributed to the book’s breakout success — a point not lost on other publishers who rushed to re-package their own erotica titles in a similar fashion. The results inevitably lacked the finesse of the original, but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as they say…
But while the cover of Fifty Shades of Gray smartly defied the conventions of its genre, it wasn’t an exciting cover and some publishers seemed to be more conservative in their design choices, playing it safe or relying on formulas. The jacket for The Casual Vacancy could hardly have been more forgettable, and it was not alone. A bland sameness crept in. Perhaps that could be said every year. I suspect, however, that smaller budgets, tighter deadlines, and readers browsing thumbnails rather than shelves had an effect.
Nevertheless, some publishers were willing to trust their art directors and designers, and publish interesting and challenging covers. If I was to identify a common theme to my choices this year, it would be hand-drawn lettering and illustrated designs. With the ubiquity of stock photos and uninspired type-choices, that seems to be where the interesting things are happening, at least to my mind. Perhaps photographs will make a come back next year?
After Freud Left edited by John Burnham; designed by Isaac Tobin
University of Chicago Press
All Men Are Liars by Alberto Manguel; design by Jason Booher
Riverhead
El asenino hipocondríaco by Juan Jacinto Muñoz Rengel; design by Ferran López, illustration Santiago Caruso
Plaza & Janés
Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss by Philip Nel; design by Chris Ware
University Press of Mississippi
Cruel Britannia by Ian Cobain; design by FUEL
Portobello Books
The Dubliners by James Joyce; design by Apfel Zet / Richard Bravery
Penguin Essentials, Penguin (UK)
The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus; design by Peter Mendelsund
Knopf
A Free Man by Aman Sethi; design by Ben Wiseman
W.W. Norton
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood; illustration by Vania Zouravliov
Vintage Isherwood, Vintage (UK)
The Heart Broke In by James Meek; design by Jennifer Carrow; illustration by Michele Banks
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel by Shalom Auslander; design by John Gall
Riverhead
How to Sharpen Pencils by David Rees; design by Christopher Brian King
Melville House
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson; design by Jonny Pelham
Hesperus Press
Husk: A Novel by Corey Redekop; design by David A. Gee
In Praise of Nonsense by Ted Hiebert; design by David Drummond
McGill-Queens University Press
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison; design by Cardon Webb
Vintage (US)
Lost at Sea by Jon Ronson; design by Matt Dorfman
Riverhead
May We Be Forgiven by A. M. Homes; designed by Alison Forner
Viking
Men in Space by Tom McCarthy; design by John Gall
Vintage (US)
NW by Zadie Smith; designed by Gray318
Hamish Hamilton
Office Girl by Joe Meno; design by Cody Hudson, photograph by Todd Baxter
Akashic
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen; design by Jessica Hische / Paul Buckley
Penguin Drop Cap, Penguin (US)
Swimming Studies by Leanne Shapton; design Leanne Shapton / Matthew Young
Particular Books
Watergate: A Novel by Thomas Mallon; design by Paul Sahre
Why We Build by Rowan Moore; illustration by Diane Berg
Picador (UK)
Honourable Mentions:
;
You can find my lists for 2010 and 2011 here and here, and if you haven’t seen my 50 covers post from earlier this year, you can find that here. Happy Holidays!
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The most recent cover of Playboy is, as some have been quick to point out, reminiscent of John Gall’s original cover design for the Vintage edition of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, reissued in 2005. John’s design is more subtle than the Playboy cover and more effective for it (but then Lolita is not Playboy after all):
Were Playboy inspired by the book cover? It seems unlikely. The image in John’s design was actually rotated for the final cover and looks quite different:
If I remember correctly the change was made because original orientation was too suggestive. For Lolita. (Just think about that for a minute.)
Is it also seems unlikely that they were inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe (Black Iris III pictured above) although there are some obvious similarities. Has anyone used O’Keeffe for the cover of Lolita?
Interestingly, the cover for the current Penguin edition of Lolita uses a similar colour palette to the Vintage edition and (to a lesser extent Playboy). The head is upright in this version as well. The vertical line of the nose is broken the horizontal features of the eyes and mouth, as well as by the title. Disconcertingly, the photograph and the round sans-serif font are suggestive of a YA novel. Perhaps that unsettling thought is the desired effect?
John’s design for Vintage replaced an earlier photographic cover by Megan Wilson which took an altogether different approach, placing the book firmly in a historical context. It’s interesting, however, that John’s unused design echoes the crooked vertical line created by the legs in Wilson’s image:
While maintaining a vertical line, David Gee’s unpublished cover cuts to the chase in a far more clinical fashion…*
Inadvertently referencing spatialist painter Lucio Fontana…
And one cannot talk about vertical lines and vaginas without mentioning Barnett Newman and his infamous “zip”. Or at least I can’t. But surely Mr Newman wasn’t thinking smutty thoughts was he?
Somehow I doubt Playboy was influenced by either Fontana or Newman. However, here is a 2003 poster for the Vagina Monologues designed by Chermayeff & Geismar that pre-dates both Playboy and Gall. The message is different, I think, but the photograph is clearly being used in a similar way. I’m sorry I don’t have a better image:
And finally, here is the cover of Nova 1965-1975, which utilizes an original cover from the innovative women’s magazine where Harry Peccinotti was art director. Is this the design that started it all?
*You can see many (many) more Lolita book covers here, and read Print magazine’s article ‘Recovering Lolita’ about John Bertram’s cover competition, here. The mighty Peter Mendelsund also weighs in on covering Nabokov here.
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A design collaboration between Paul Buckley and Jessica Hische, Penguin Drop Caps is a 26-book series of hardcover classics. The first six books go on sale November 27th. See the covers at Imprint.
Plumbing — An interview with book designer John Gall at The Believer:
A cover is a structural part of the book. It protects the pages. It provide the first impression of the content. It’s an eye-catching device – maybe the book’s only means of advertising. It can even add to the editorial content of the book; you can kill bugs with it. Then, after you buy the book, the cover takes on another function. It’s your visual connection to the book as you develop a relationship with the material. It can also communicate to others who you are. I’m one of those people, who when I visit someone, I snoop around and see what’s on their bookshelves. I’m not doing this to judge them, but to find some common interest, a connection to that person.
There is also this great anecdote about Tom McCarthy and the cover for Remainder:
We did a photo shoot for his cover so it appeared that the book was being slowly immersed into blue liquid. We had to create a somewhat elaborate setup to get it just right. We sent the author a photo of the studio setup as a souvenir, showing the tripods and lights and water tanks. A year later he wrote back saying he had an argument with some artist friends of his over dinner. They were looking at the studio-set photo and were insisting that it was all a fake setup and that the cover was executed in Photoshop; that the photo shoot was all staged to provide “proof,” like a fake moon landing!
My Q & A with John is here.
Graveyard Stillness — Andrew Beckett reviews Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division bassist Peter Hook for The Guardian:
Joy Division, for all the graveyard stillness of their record sleeves, were participants in a frenetic golden age for British pop, which had begun with punk in 1976 and would peak, commercially at least, with the British dominance of the American charts in 1983. Groups grew up fast and seized their moment, or disappeared. Yet Joy Division did not earn enough from their feverish touring and recording to give up their day jobs. Hook worked in the offices of the Manchester Ship Canal Company, Curtis at an employment exchange, and Sumner for a film company where his “job was to colour in Danger Mouse”.
And finally…
The Fight Against Loss — A lovely essay by Simon Schama on why he writes:
Orwell’s four motives for writing still seem to me the most honest account of why long-form non-fiction writers do what they do, with “sheer egoism” at the top; next, “aesthetic enthusiasm” – the pleasure principle or sheer relish of sonority (“pleasure in the impact of one sound on another”); third, the “historical impulse” (the “desire to see things as they are”), and, finally, “political purpose”: the urge to persuade, a communiqué from our convictions.To that list I would add that writing has always seemed to me a fight against loss, an instinct for replay; a resistance to the attrition of memory.
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