John Williams of The New York Times Arts Beat Blog recently asked people in and around the world of graphic design to name one of their favorite book covers from 2012 and briefly describe its appeal. Below is a visual sampling of some designer favorites:
“The Flame Alphabet” by Ben Marcus (Knopf) Jacket design by Peter Mendelsund. Selected as a favorite by Jon Gray.
London based cover design John Gray says, “The book covers that Peter Mendelsund designs are most often brilliant. He is annoyingly talented and, worse, consistent. My favorite this year is … a simple idea beautifully executed in rich, warm colors. Like all the best designs, it makes you wish you’d thought of it yourself. It serves as a reminder that a book can be so much more than data consumption on an electronic device. You want to hold it, own it and buy it for your friends.”
“Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison (Vintage) Jacket design by Cardon Webb. Selected as a favorite by Barbara deWilde.
Interaction designer Barbara deWilde says, “I love Cardon Webb’s updated version because it references Harlem in the 1940s and ’50s; specifically the visual language of jazz albums. Ellison was a musician — a trumpet player who later became a writer — and this book cover could easily become a record sleeve. The entire series is inspiring and vibrant. The covers sing.”
“Angelmaker” by Nick Harkaway (Knopf) Jacket design by Jason Booher. Selected as a favorite by Gregg Kulick.
Art Director Gregg Kulick says, “A lot of different elements can make a book cover successful or not. One of the most important, of course, is coercing a potential reader to at least pick up the book. Jason Booher’s cover for “Angelmaker” does exactly that. Walking past it in the store, you immediately want to figure it out. In addition to being eye-catching, I also love the fact that there is real content relating to the book on the cover. The disks are a code that offers clues. The combination of beauty and content is really what set this apart from other covers this year.”
“Building Stories” by Chris Ware (Pantheon) Jacket design by Chris Ware. Selected as a favorite by John Gall.
Creative Director John Gall says, “This choice is unfair to all the other cover designers out there, as Chris Ware doesn’t have to play by the same rules as the rest of us mere mortals. This is probably the most masterful, challenging and shape-shifting piece of graphic design I have seen all year. I don’t even know if it qualifies as a book cover. What the heck is it? A book? A box? An attaché of woe? Different rules. So unfair.”
“Gravity’s Rainbow” by Thomas Pynchon (Vintage Publishing, Random House UK) Jacket design by Matt Broughton. Selected as a favorite by David Drummond.
David Drummond of Salamander Hill Design says, “I love the graphic simplicity and power of this cover. A rainbow made up of V-2 rockets is an ingenious solution. The one black rocket placed in the center of all the other rockets alludes to the quest for the mysterious black device on “the one rocket out of 6,000 that carried the Imipolex G device.” From a strictly graphic point of view I love the choice of the grey felt background and the subtle paint texturing of the colored rockets.”
“ ‘Who Could That Be at This Hour?’ ” by Lemony Snicket (Little, Brown & Company) Jacket illustration by Seth. Jacket design by Gail Doobinin. Selected as a favorite by Chip Kidd.
New York based cover design Chip Kidd says, “Lemony Snicket and Seth, what a perfect but unexpected combination: sort of the literary equivalent of salt and caramel. And not just on the cover, throughout the entire beautifully executed book.”
Book cover design is an art in and of itself. Since you’ve probably already purchased a gift of original art from your favorite on-line art gallery as a holiday gift (wink wink), you might also consider one of these well designed books as a stocking stuffer.
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