Hey, I hope you’re keeping safe, well and warm (or cool!) wherever you are.
If you missed it, my first post of 2025 was a look back at some of last year’s YA covers. You can find my 2024 list of notable literary covers here. Both posts got me thinking more generally about these lists. Do I need to change things up? Or stop altogether? Several other sites are posting lists that do much the same thing mine, and they are all starting to feel too alike. I don’t have answer, and I don’t really know I would do differently. I’m struggling to post once a month as it is. For now at least I’ll keep posting the covers that interest me. It’s just something that’s on my mind, and I have other projects I’ve been neglecting, so I’m curious if you have opinions.
Anyway, this month’s post is a bit of a short (but good!) one, and includes a couple of covers that I missed in 2024 for one reason or another. Enjoy!
Eurotrash by Christian Kracht; design by Sinem Erkas (Profile Books / November 2024)
I do really like this cover. It looks great! But it also looks a lot like non-fiction, especially when compared to the cover of the US edition (Liveright, October 2024) designed by Jason Heuer. They look like completely different books!
And speaking of Jason Heuer, he’s made a series of fun videos talking about embarrassing moments from his early graphic design career. You can find them on YouTube and Instagram. In the second episode Jason talks about his first book design credit…
It is the time of year for lists and I should’ve been done weeks ago, but I am late and already well behind the pack. Apologies for that.
I admire Matt Dorfman‘s ability to whittle his list down to a dozen covers for the New York Times. I imagine it takes him a lot less time for one thing, but I’m sure Matt still agonizes over every cover. It requires a level of discipline and restraint that I do not possess to keep it that tight year after year.
PRINT’s list of best book covers of 2024, compiled by editor-at-large Zachary Petit, is also long. It’s a 100 covers. Last year it was 50.
I’m not trying to throw stones here. We are all seeing more covers than we used to. There are more books for one thing. But they’re not just something we just experience in print in anymore. You don’t have to go into a bookstore or read the newspaper or magazine to see them. They’ve become something we see and share all the time online. Designers are promoting their own work and (slowly) getting more credit for it (although there is a lot more to be done in that area. Publishers — credit your designers!). My monthly round-ups are now one of several you can choose from.
And it is not like my list is short. This year it features work by 48 designers — more than half of them women — and 86 covers (plus a couple of supplementary images).
The consensus seems to be that it was a decent year for covers, and it’s hard to argue with other people’s selections even if I don’t love them all.
It is telling though that 100 of LitHub’s selections were individual picks. There are covers on my list that are not on the anyone else’s despite their length. So while I think we agree there were lots of good covers, I’m less certain we entirely agree on which ones were actually the outstanding ones.
A recent article Spine argued that there is a battle between minimalism and maximalism going on (you can find Spine’s end of year list here by the way). I think that could be true. Different approaches work for different audiences. But I also think it’s messier than that. I get the sense that publishers are less sure of what they want and what sells (certain genres notwithstanding).
It has been a rough year for a lot of publishers, so there is undoubtedly a lot of uncertainty, and no small amount of anxiety. I could go on about why that it is (and the publishing’s self-inflicted wounds) but, in short, what I think we’re also seeing with book covers is more meddling and less direction.
Anyway, I don’t want to end this on a bleak note. This year was shit enough. Despite it all, there genuinely were a lot of good covers in 2024, and some that I did think we’re outstanding. A couple of them made me laugh, which was no small thing. It was a strong year for several individual designers in particular and, despite the pressures, many produced work that was recognizably theirs. I thought there were more interesting covers coming out of the UK and Ireland (that mercifully wasn’t just about the inks or the finishes!), and there were some fun Canadian covers too.
Thanks, as always, for reading, and I hope you’re all keeping safe and well. Happy Holidays!
Holy Winter 20/21 by Maria Stepanova; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / October 2024)My Beloved Life by Amitava Kumar; design by Oliver Munday (Knopf / February 2024)
Mammoth by Eva Baltasar; design by Anna Morrison (And Other Stories / August 2025)
MILF by Paloma Faith; design by Jack Smyth (Ebury / June 2024)
Also designed by Jack Smith:
Lobster by Hollie McNish; design by Jack Smyth (Little, Brown / March 2024)Neu Klang by Christoph Dallach; design by Jack Smyth (Faber & Faber / May 2024)
I also have to give a special shout out to the cover for Paper Boat by Margaret Atwood (Chatto & Windus / October 2024). Suzanne commissioned paper art by Nathan Ward to design a template for a paper boat that could be cut out from the dust jacket and stuck together.
I hope you’re keeping safe and well. Between work trips and sales conference it’s been a few weeks for me, and there are a lot of covers this month, so I am going to stop prattling and let you get straight to the post…
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck; design by John Gall (New Directions / May 2024)
This is the cover of the newly released US paperback. John Gall also designed the cover for the hardback, published by New Directions last year. Author Jenny Erpenbeck and translator Michael Hofmann recently won the 2024 International Booker Prize with Kairos.
This composition brings to mind David Pelham’s covers for J. G. Ballard. (On a semi-related note, air-brushed covers are probably overdue a revival. Or is it a dying art now?)
Hey, I hope you’re safe and well. I’m a little bit ahead of schedule because fall sales conference season is upon us, and I have to be in New York for work next week. I’m less ahead than I would’ve liked — PRINT has already beaten me to the punch! — but here we are, a couple of days earlier than usual, with another look at some new and recent book covers. April is National Poetry Month in the US so there are a few poetry covers in the mix, as well as a couple of covers from independent presses, an Australian cover, and all the usual suspects.
The Formula by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg; design by Pete Garceau (Mariner Books / March 2024)
Two nonfiction sports books in one post! Does Formula One really count as a sport? Not for me, Clive. But the subtitle says it is, and a Canadian friend once told me that for something to qualify as a sport it has to endanger your life in some fundamental way, so I guess F1 qualifies under Quebec Rules for Teen Boys if nothing else.
Anyway, it might be fun to do a post of interesting sports books covers at some point if I can find the time (let me know if any great examples come to mind!).
I feel like this is a bit different for a psychological thriller? I like the type a lot.
Knife by Salman Rushdie; design by Arsh Raziuddin (Random House / April 2024)
Interestingly, there is an “eye” motif on the spine with the Random House logo in the centre. Look for it next time you’re in a bookstore.
Also, this cover isn’t the first to riff, consciously or otherwise, on the cut canvases of Italian artist Lucio Fontana. The cover of Ball by Tara Ison, designed by Kelly Winton, comes to mind. I’m sure there are other examples (David Gee’s unpublished cover for Lolita. Are the more?).
This reminded me of Eric’s illustrations for the covers of Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy designed by Charlotte Strick.
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (US); design by Charlotte Strick; Illustration by Eric Nyquist (FSG / 2014)Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer (US); design by Charlotte Strick; Illustration by Eric Nyquist (FSG / 2014)
At the turn of the year, writer and activist Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshitification.” Although he was specifically describing the process of online services getting worse for users, it was hard not to see it everywhere in 2023.
In his annual look at the year’s best book covers for the New York Times, art director Matt Dorfman recounts a friend describing 2023 as a “year of survival”, a year of “no growth, no withering, just getting by.”
This year saw a centuries-old business contending with rounds of buyouts and layoffs, alongside an endless news cycle involving two brutal wars from which no authors, friends, enemies or strangers were immune from accountability for any unrehearsed sentiment they might voice in passing. Add to this the ongoing concern about how artificial intelligence will affect a business historically dependent upon human creativity — yet through it all, there was still the matter of making books, and their covers, to get on with.
I read Matt’s piece the same day I read an article by Kyle Chayka in the New Yorkerabout his search foran epochal term to “evoke the panicky incoherence of our lives of late.” The suggestions range from the bland ‘Long 2016,’ to the incredibly ominous-sounding ‘Chthulucene,’ the Lovecraftian ‘New Dark Age,’ and the frankly terrifying and plausible ‘Jackpot’ from William Gibson’s 2014 novel The Peripheral.
This was the context of life and work in 2023.
Matt notes some designers found inspiration in the zeitgeist. He’s not wrong. But, ironically perhaps, I feel less optimistic about the overall picture than he does.
At the risk of repeating what I’ve written in the past couple of years, it’s like we’re stuck in a holding pattern, circling the same design ideas. Trends have stuck around. A lot of covers feel safe. Some of this was the books themselves. I’m not sure exactly how many celebrity memoirs is too many, but I’m pretty sure we reached that point and sailed right past it in 2023. No doubt some of it is sales and marketing departments sanding down all the edges and demanding the tried and true (see Zachary Petit’s alternative best of 2023 piece on killed covers for Fast Company). But I would not be surprised if it designers were just getting caught up in the churn — too many books, too many covers, and too much other stuff to worry about.
Or maybe it’s just me.
Rouge by Mona Awad; design by Oliver Munday (Simon & Schuster / September 2023)Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia; design by Regina Flath (Del Rey Books / July 2023)Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez; design by Donna Cheng (Hogarth / September 2023)
One of the themes of the year was nostalgia, which I’m sure can also be put down to the present being pretty fucking awful. It was apparent across almost all genres, including literary fiction, but nowhere more so than in the resurgent supernatural suspense and horror categories. There were creative stylistic mashups with retro vibes, along side fastidious Stranger Things-like homages to the 1980s and Stephen King.
Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward; design by Katie Klimowicz (Tor / August 2023)The Only One Left by Riley Sager; design by Kaitlin Kall (Dutton / June 2023)Come Closer by Sara Gran; design by Caroline Johnson (Soho Press / September 2023)
One genuinely pleasant surprise was the number of interesting covers from Canadian publishers this year. They’ve been quietly risk-averse in recent years, so it was nice to see a few bolder design choices getting approved. I was happy to see a Canadian cover was one of the top picks on Literary Hub’s (very, very long) list of the best covers of 2023.
There were other things to cheer this year too.
The Lights by Ben Lerner; design by David Pearson (Granta / September 2023)Total Reset by Sinéad Brady; design Steve Leard (HarperCollins / March 2023)How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney; design by Zoe Norvell (Biblioasis / November 2023)
Spine continued to give space to designers to talk about their work in a way I’ve never been able to do consistently here. You can find their 2023 cover picks here.
David Pearson started the Book Cover Review, a website for short reviews of book covers.
Zoe Norvell’s I Need A Book Cover, a resource for book cover inspiration as well as place for authors and publishers to connect with designers, also went live.
Steve Leard launched Cover Meeting, a podcast series of in-depth interviews with cover designers (including David and Zoe among others). As Mark Sinclair notes in his piece on book cover design this year for Creative Review, Steve’s conversations shed light on wider concerns in the industry as well as each designer’s individual process. Have a listen if you haven’t already.
Berlin by Bea Setton; design by Emily Mahon; cover image by Nataša Denić (Penguin Books / May 2023)
Also designed by Emily Mahon:
Lost Believers by Irina Zhorov; design by Emily Mahon (Scribner / August 2023)Do Tell by Lindsay Lynch; design by Emily Mahon; illustration and lettering by Studio Martina Flor (Doubleday / July 2023)
B.F.F. by Christie Tate; design by Ben Wiseman (Avid Reader Press / February 2023)
The Illiterate by Ágota Kristóf; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / April 2023)
Also designed by Oliver Munday:
The Guest by Emma Cline; design by Oliver Munday (Random House / May 2023)Life on Delay by John Hendrikson; design by Oliver Munday (Knopf / January 2023)
Sublunar by Harald Voetmann; design by Jamie Keenan (New Directions / August 2023)
Also designed by Jamie Keenan:
The Dimensions of a Cave by Greg Jackson; design by Jamie Keenan (Granta / October 2023)Dr. No by Percival Everett; design by Jamie Keenan (Influx Press / March 2023)
Sam by Allegra Goodman; design by Donna Cheng; photograph by Mariam Sitchinava (Dial Press / January 2023)
I’m not sure exactly why, but I just assumed this was a UK cover when I first saw it (despite it literally having “New York Times Bestselling Author” in all-caps at the top!).
Sing, Nightingale by Marie Hélène Poitras; translated by Rhonda Mullins ; design by Ingrid Paulson (Coach House / February 2023)
For some reason this makes me think of the ‘weird nature’ (including animals with human eyes!) in Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer, which is still one of my favourite novels of the last 10 years…
True Life by Adam Zagajewski; design by Jeff Clark (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / February 2023)
I also saw Pete Garceau’s cover for School House Burning by Derek W. Black recently, which snuck past me when it was published by PublicAffairs in September 2020 but still seems terribly au courant…
Wolfish by Erica Berry; design by Keith Hayes; illustration by Rokas Aleliunas (Flatiron / February 2023)
