There’s been a heck of a lot of press this month about book cover design, which is a Very Good Thing. It’s often woefully overlooked in the design industry, let alone in the world at large.
Most of the press comes as a direct result of Julian Barnes namechecking the designer Suzanne Dean (creative director at Random House) in his acceptance speech for the Man Booker Prize, for his book The Sense of an Ending.
Check out this thoughtful piece from Kathryn Hughes in the Guardian, which looks at the growth of the book as object, in the face of the unstoppable march of the e-reader. And then take a look at this piece in the Telegraph about the design process behind the Dean cover; as well as this piece from Nick Duerden in the Independent naming a few of his favourite cover designers. All good stuff.
If you want to go a bit deeper, then make sure you check out Dan Wagstaff’s excellent blog The Casual Optimist, where he’s just published his favourite covers from 2010 and 2011. In the 2011 list, he features Peter Mendelsund’s fantastic series of Kafka covers (top, and below).
Mendelsund, art director at Knopf and Pantheon, is a bit of a god-like genius – we featured his gorgeous Last Werewolf cover back in April. You should definitely take a look at his brilliantly erudite blog, Jacket Mechanical. And if that whets your appetite, then sate it with Debbie Millman’s brilliant Design Matters interview with him. His path to becoming a designer is quite unique, and his thoughts about how a book cover should work are well worth listening to.
Interestingly, he mentions that he’s worried that he might be out of a job within five years, because of the growth of e-readers, and the consequent diminishing of the importance of cover design. Well heck, if he’s gonna be out of a job, there’s not much hope for the rest of us… He also mentions that he himself hasn’t read a physical book in years, as he now reads everything on an iPad; so frankly Mendelsund, you’ve only got yourself to blame.
If that isn’t enough, then check out: designer John Gall’s lovely blog, Spine Out; the Caustic Cover Critic blog, which seems to scoop everyone else on featuring the very latest book cover designs; the Book Cover Archive, which does what it says on the tin, and also has a good set of links to more blogs; and Faceout Books, which features in-depth analysis of individual covers – such as this post about our studio buddy David Pearson’s covers for Penguin’s Great Journeys series.
And if you’re still not done after all that lot, then how about you read an actual book? We can recommend Joe Dunthorne’s lovely Wild Abandon
This was a great book cover site too, though sadly it’s been put to bed now. http://nytimesbooks.blogspot.com/
Good call Jim. Guess that’s the thing about books – they spell the end of blogging. Oh, wait…
Nice to see book designers getting some love – hopefully this will stop publishers diminishing the input of designers and art directors in favour of in-house sales and marketing teams.
I disagree! If we’re indeed heading towards an all-digital future, cover design and book design will be more important than ever. In a market where anyone and their mother can publish what they want, you have about five seconds to catch someone’s attention with your cover art. You have to have good designers to make that work, no matter what the medium.
Thank you for the links! I design for the comics we publish and it’s always awesome to get more inspiration.
Book cover design “woefully overlooked”? Hell, book interior design is what’s overlooked. Really.
Very good point Stephen.
Hear, hear, Stephen!
I think Book jacket design is more exciting than record cover design these days (the area a lot of designers wanted to work in when I was at art college).
Here is the place for book jacket porn (http://bookcoverarchive.com/).
There is also a thriving scene of book jacket artists sharing there work on http://www.designrelated.com
It’s a great industry to be involved in. Those covers by Mendelsund are pure visual excellence. However book covers like these can exist without the right attitudes within the publishing house and of the author (Knopf are known for thinking outside of the box). Allow the designer to get their own way now and again and you may just have some magic on your hands