Well, it’s been a month. I hope you’re all keeping safe and well, especially my friends and publishing colleagues in Minnesota. Stay Strong.
The Aquatics by Osvalde Lewat, translated by Maren Baudet-Lackner; design by Alban Fischer (Coffee House Press / December 2025)
As If by Magic by Edgard Telles Ribeiro, translated by Kim M Hastings & Margaret A Neves; design by Alban Fischer (Bellevue Literary Press / January 2026)
Yes, starting off the year with two covers designed by Alban, but also two books from nonprofit publishers based in Minneapolis, Coffee House Press and Bellevue Literary Press.
Crux by Gabriel Tallent; design by Jaya Miceli (Riverhead / January 2026)
This reminded me of the cover of There Is No Place For Us by Brian Goldstone designed by Anna Kochman for Crown, which featured in March’s post. I’m no Barnett Newman, I do like a bold stripe.
Unfit by Ariana Harwicz, translated by Jessie Mendez Sayer; design by Erik Carter (New Directions / October 2025)
Dan Jackson also designed a new cover for the paperback edition of The Employees by Olga Ravn out next month in the UK from Penguin, which weirdly kind of looks like a Joan Wong collage, but could also be part of a dismembered / disembodied limbs on covers trend? I’m struggling to think of too many examples off the top of my head. Alban Fischer‘s cover design for My Dreadful Body by Egana Djabbarova? But that’s not out until next year. I’m sure there are a couple of others out there. I will have a think on it.
I am very late to this one, but the art is fun and it kind of fits with recent trends so I didn’t want to leave it out. Let me know if there is a design credit to add.
Interestingly, Shannon Cartier Lucy’s art was also used on the cover of Worry by Alexandra Tanner designed by Alicia Tatone for Scribner from last year…
I like these bright and bold covers by Stephen Smith, AKA Neasden Control Centre, for the new Vintage Classics editions of Julio Cortázar a lot. It feels like an inspired match of illustrator to author. The art direction is by Suzanne Dean of course.
You will have to wait for the hardcover of Divertimento (translated into English for the first time by Harry Morales) because it doesn’t go on sale until May 2026, but the paperback reissues came out last month in the UK.
Divertimentoby Julio Cortázar, translated by Harry Morales (Vintage Classics / May 2026) Bestiary: The Selected Stories of Julio Cortázar by Julio Cortázar (Vintage Classics / August 2025) Final Exam by Julio Cortázar (Vintage Classics / August 2025)Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar (Vintage Classics / August 2025)The Winnersby Julio Cortázar (Vintage Classics / August 2025)62: A Model Kit by Julio Cortázar (Vintage Classics / August 2025)A Manual for Manuel by Julio Cortázar (Vintage Classics / August 2025)
Hey, sorry, just sliding in under the wire with another slightly rushed post this month. I hope everyone is safe and well (all things considered). Let’s just get on with it shall we?
Also, the cover of Matt Wesolowski’s book Six Stories designed by Mark Swan was featured here way back in April 2017 (which was a pretty good month for covers!)
Jenny has a new portfolio site so go check that out. (Also, if anyone has a higher res version of the cover for The Holy Innocents, please send it over! I’d love to have a better one. Thanks!)
I am a sucker for good photo selection on a cover. This photo is from Ed Templeton’s series/installation (and book) Teenage Smokers. Although it is kind of interesting to me that a book with such a British title uses a photograph by an American photographer, but it does have incredible 1990s vibes.
The cover of the UK edition, published by Daunt Books, was designed by Kishan Rajani. It’s interesting to see the differences in two covers with a similar approach…
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.
Hey, I hope you’re keeping safe and well wherever you are. Apart from the weird Toronto weather, it is definitely FALL here with the kids back in school and days of seemingly endless pre-sales calls and shortlists. It is also the time of year for “big” books of course, and there are more covers from the conglomerate publishers in this month’s post than I would generally like. My sense is that independent publishers try to avoid releasing their books in September if they can these days, but maybe I just haven’t seen the right ones? Anyway I guess we should be glad the big guys still care about fun covers, right?
Hey, I hope you’re keeping safe and well. I feel like I just finished July’s post and now it’s the end of August. There are a few more covers from earlier in the year in this month’s post. I’m still catching up. But there’s some Canadian content, a few covers from the UK, some indie presses, and a university press, which is always nice. Enjoy the last few weeks of summer!
1974 by Francine Prose; design by High Tide (Harper / June 2024)
Thanks to Robin Bilardello and AD Milan Bozic at Harper for their help on the credit for this one! :-)
Anyone’s Ghost by August Thompson; design by Keith Hayes (Penguin Press / July 2024)
This was published last month, but I had it in my August folder. If I had to guess it was because of the author’s name. I am easily confused.
I think this came out in July too, but it looks like Faber used the ISBN of the existing 2017 edition even though there is a new cover so I don’t know for sure when it was updated (publishers: don’t do this).
Burn by Peter Heller; design Kelly Blair; painting ‘Boat Building in Maine’ (detail) by Paul Dougherty (Knopf / August 2024)
Coexistence by Billy Ray Belcourt; design by Kelly Hill; photography by Steven Beckly (Hamish Hamilton Canada / May 2024)
Because I am of certain age (old and mouldering like an ancient vampire hiding from the sun of contemporary pop culture) this reminded me of the cabinet art for the original Space Invaders arcade game. Hilariously, if not surprisingly, there is a Fonts in Use post about the typography of the original promo materials and cabinet art of Space Invaders. If anyone knows of a good article about the artwork itself I would love to read it.
Speaking of all things retro, Henry has posted some photos of his Letraset experiments for this cover on Instagram.
Hair for Men by Michelle Williams; design by Greg Tabor (House of Anansi / August 2025)
There is something ‘early 2000s Canlit’ about this cover. If you’d told me this was designed for Anansi by Bill Douglas in like 2004 I would’ve believed you, and I mean that in the best way. (I appreciate that only the grizzled Canadian publishing folks like me will get this reference but hey…)
Mammoth by Eva Baltasar; design by Anna Morrison (And Other Stories / August 2025)
Anna also designed the covers for two previous novels by Eva Baltasar published by AOS, including a pink special edition of Permafrost (which is possibly my favourite).
I was trying to think what this reminded me of and I think it’s either Ed Emberley’s Great Thumbprint Drawing Book or possibly the current cover of Design as Artby Bruno Munari, which (IIRC) uses drawings of faces from inside the book (but no thumbprints!).
I don’t know how you would describe this particular shade — salmon pink? Financial Times pink? (Are those variations of the same thing, actually?) — but it feels like a pink covers are still a bit of thing. (Did I mention pink covers already a couple of months ago? I think I did…? Sigh. I am repeating myself. It might be time to give this up)
I like this cover a lot, but is the disembodied hug also becoming a thing? I think I mentioned this a while back too! (Pictured: the cover The Nursery by by Szilvia Molnar designed by Hayley Warnham from May last year, and a poster by Vasilis Marmatakis for the 2015 movie The Lobster)
Obviously the details of the designs and the approaches are quite different, but the cover of A Termination reminded me of the cover of Anxiety by Samir Chopra designed by Karl Spurzem for Princeton University Press from March this year. I think it’s an interesting compare and contrast?
The Wisdom of Sheep by Rosamund Young; design by Darren Haggar (Penguin Press / August 2024)
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 keeping safe and well wherever you are. I’m going to keep this very short as there’s lots going on, but there some great covers, and a couple of tenuous comparisons this month (hey, I can’t help how my brain works!) . Enjoy!
This reminded me of Akiko Stehrenberger‘s poster for the movie Funny Games. They don’t really look alike, and the tone is very different, but I think it was the close crop and the hair that brought it to mind.
Dirtbag by Amber A’Lee Frost; design by Rob Grom (St. Martin’s Press / December 2023)
This brought to mind Peter Mendelsund’s cover for The Woman Destroyedby Simone Beauvoir, published by Pantheon, which in turn reminded me Gunter Rambow‘s Gitanes, Un Hommage à Max Ponty poster…
The image is taken from the 17th Century painting ‘The Torture of Prometheus’ by Giovacchino Assereto (thanks for letting me know, Jason!). The tight crop (which is great!), reminded me of Peter Hujar’s 1969 photograph ‘Orgasmic Man’, which was used on the cover of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara designed by Cardon Webb a few years ago. Art imitating art, kind of?
Jacket design by Cardon Webb; jacket photograph Orgasmic Man by Peter Hujar 1987
Splinters by Leslie Jamison; design by Gregg Kulick (Little, Brown & Co / February 2024)
The cover of the UK edition of Splinters, published this month by Granta, was designed by Jack Smyth. It’s interesting to see to a torn author photo in both…
Hey. I hope you’re safe and well and caught up on your podcasts, shows, and TBR pile.
I thought this was going to be a short post this month, and then it turned into a long one — or longer than expected at least. I don’t have too much to add to the covers. I’m busy, you’re busy. It’s almost October, literally no one has time for this! But there are some lovely covers this month. There’s a bit autumnal orange and ennui, some nice type, and a couple of Canadian covers (for those keeping count), and a couple of appropriately off-beat ones from our friends at New Directions.*
American Gun by Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson; design by Rodrigo Corral (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / September 2023)
Fear by Robert Peckham; design by Tom Etherington (Profile / September 2023)
Goth by Lol Tolhurst; design by Timothy O’Donnell (Quercus Publishing / September 2023)
This whole thing is ridiculously in my wheelhouse. The cover photo is by the author (of course!), and there’s a fun note about trying to source the type in Timothy’s Instagram post about the design.
Grand Tour by Elisa Gonzalez; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
I’m not sure it was the intention, but I like the trippy film title / goth art project quality of this.
The Lights by Ben Lerner; design by David Pearson (Granta / September 2023)
Hopefully you’ve all had chance to listen to David on the Cover Meeting podcast by now. It’s really good!
The cover of the US edition published by FSG was designed by Thom Colligan. It’s interesting that they’re similar and yet different. I wonder if it was brief or just a creative coincidence?
I’m sure I’m not the only one to get Edward Hopper vibes from this cover.
The cover of the UK edition was designed by Suzanne Dean with a cover illustration by Anna Morrison.
*A bit of admin from last month: I finally managed to spend some time browsing a bookstore and I was able to ascertain that the cover of the US edition of Bridge by Lauren Beukes was designed by Kirin Diemont. Apologies to Kirin for not crediting her at the time in last month’s post. It’s updated now)
2022. Twenty twenty-two. Two thousand and twenty-two… “Where did it go?” Or, sobbing, “ are we done yet?” It feels like both. It’s been a year that’s simultaneously dragged on interminably and disappeared in a cognitive blur.
I’m glad other people have already written about it.
At Creative Review, writer and editor Mark Sinclair picked his favourite covers of 2022 and reflected on industry trends in the UK, including the Design Publishing & Inclusivity mentorship program for under-represented creatives launched this year by Ebyan Egal, Donna Payne, and Steve Panton.
Literary Hub posted the best covers of the year as chosen by 31 designers. With a comprehensive 103 covers on the list, it tacitly poses the annual question “what do I have left to add to this conversation?” LitHub have been posting these lists for seven years apparently. I am an ancient desiccated husk.
Fast Company and the Washington Post asked slightly smaller groups of designers to write about their favourites covers.
Designer and art director Matt Dorfman chose the best book covers of 2022 for the New York Times, and empathized with the plight of the designers:
Most often, any personal stylistic expressions in their work are swallowed up in service to the multiple masters — editors, marketing directors, sales teams — who sign off on a book’s cover. There is also the matter of adhering to any one publisher’s dos and don’ts, which can inform mandates about typography, color palettes and production flourishes like embossing or metallic inks. For people employed in a theoretically creative pursuit, designers’ talents are often defined by how effortlessly they can make themselves disappear to serve the book.
Matt Dorfman, New York Times
No one captured the prevailing mood better than this Tom Gauld cartoon. A reminder, if one were needed, that nobody knows anything.
Earlier in the year, Australian reporter Rafqa Touma called out the trend of ‘well dressed and distressed’ young women on covers. As designer Mietta Yans notes, the covers often reflect their books’ stylish and sad protagonists, so I’m not sure this one is on the art departments.
Some of the trends I’ve talked about before spilled over into 2022. Collage, painting (contemporary, and historical — often tightly cropped), big skies, landscapes and seascapes, black and white photography (not just for LGBTQ+ trauma!), retro-ness, idiosyncratic display typefaces. Orange. Pink was in vogue too. The Instagram-ish combination of both pink and orange (sometimes with deep purple-ish blues too) seemed to be very much a thing this year. I suspect this is what happens when you ask designers to make things “pop” one too many times.
It is hard to know if these are genuine trends, or if it is just the stuff I notice. I’m sure there are things going on with commercial covers that I don’t pay enough attention to (although I will not be sad to see the popularity of that flat illustration style — the one that Slate pointed out in TWO THOUSAND AND FIFTEEN! — eventually fade away). I certainly don’t get the sense that everything looks the same, which is often the criticism. There is still room for a little weirdness and that can only be a good thing…
Ghost Music by An Yu; design Suzanne Dean (Harvill Secker / November 2022)Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes; design by Suzanne Dean (Jonathan Cape / April 2022)
The Julian Barnes cover also came in blue, and under the die-cut jacket is a beautiful photo from René Groebli’s photoessay The Eye of Love.
Pure Colour by Sheila Heti; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / February 2022)
Also designed by Na Kim:
Present Tense Machine by Gunnhild Øyehaug; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / January 2022)Run and Hide by Pankaj Mishra; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / March 2022)Either/Or by Elif Batuman; design by Na Kim (Penguin Press / May 2022)
You can read about Alban’s design process for Till the Wheels Come Off at Spine.
Worn by Sofi Thanhauser; design by Janet Hansen (Pantheon / January 2022)
Also designed by Janet Hansen:
A Country of Strangers by D. Nurkse; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / April 2022)Sedating Elaine by Dawn Winter; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / April 2022)
Yoga by Emmanuel Carrère; design by Rodrigo Corral (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / August 2022)
