What do book cover trends—from swirling, abstract blobs to sunrise colours—have to say about how we choose our stories? And how do designers navigate a business where their art is used to sell books in an increasingly inattentive market? The Walrus held a roundtable with book designers Ingrid Paulson (a freelancer), Emma Dolan (Penguin Random House Canada), and Jazmin Welch (Arsenal Pulp Press) to find out the methods behind the design of contemporary covers.
This discussion has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
KC Hoard: I’m going to start with a difficult question: What’s your favourite book cover?
Ingrid Paulson: The one that kept jumping out at me this year was The Ghost Sequences. The original cover artwork is by Olga Beliaeva, and it’s with Undertow Publications, which is a Canadian horror publisher. It takes a common trope: trying to make a skull out of humans. It’s two young girls that are forming the head. I’m a little startled by that. And then the hand lettering is very, very tight and subtle. It just gets out of the way of the image, but it makes it feel very soft. And also a little spooky.
Jazmin Welch: I love the cover for Rag by Maryse Meijer. It’s got this painting of a face that’s been stretched down, and it’s kind of shocking. It leaves such little space for the title. So, even though the title is really small and subtle in the bottom corner, the design still brings it to your attention because the face is pointing that way. It makes me want to read the book, because I’m like, “Who is this character? What does this pull on the face have to do with the story and the way that the character is represented?”
Emma Dolan: Every week, I see a new cover that I wish I had thought of. But a great one I saw recently is Yoga by Emmanuel Carrère. It’s a really great example of how a short book title goes a really long way in book cover design. If the title had been something like “A Subtle Little Book on Yoga,” this design would not have the same impact. And then you wouldn’t have all that beautiful negative space.
JW: One of the most important elements is a sense of leaving something out, not telling the whole story. The whole point of a book cover is to leave someone wanting to pick it up. It’s that intrigue that makes someone step forward and hold it and actually assess the cover.
IP: You have to ask a question. Especially if you’re in a bookstore and there are hundreds of books on tables, it can be overwhelming. A book cover should not only ask a question but it should also answer the question “What do I want to read right now?” So, that becomes a lot about trying to send little hidden clues to the reader to just say, “Hey, this is actually what you want.”
ED: Ideally, it’s about capturing the right reader. It comes down to mood and tone. If a book is really earnest, maybe don’t give it a quirky cover. As a book designer, you have to spend a lot of time with the writing to capture it. (...)
ED: I think that idea about the representation of a character on the cover is such a tricky one. It goes back to what Jazmin was saying about not giving away too much. Sometimes it’s so important to have a human element on the cover, but if you depict somebody, that’s who they are for the rest of the time. I think that’s why there’s that trend of showing the back of somebody, because that could be anyone. It’s a common thing we use to have that human element that really draws the reader in without typecasting the main character. (...)
KCH: Let’s talk about trends. This whole roundtable was spurred on by a conversation within the masthead about the book blob trend (a cover with multicoloured, swirling, abstract shapes that has appeared in various iterations on a number of bestsellers in recent years).
IP: The unicorn frappuccino.
KCH: What does that mean?
ED: There are a few things that contribute to a trend like that. A big part of the discussion when you get a new book project is comparative titles. That’s covers that are already on the shelves that editorial and sales can point to, to give the designer a sense of what styles are feeling right for the book in the market. When a book does well, naturally, it seemed like a package that worked. It’s pretty common practice. But it can also lead to this oversaturation of a trend, like a book blob. How readers buy books is a big factor. We have to be mindful that a lot of people buy books online, and they’re only seeing these on a screen, and most of them on their phones. So big, clear white type and an eye-catching colour palette are really helpful for that. We’re strongly encouraged by publishers to do that.
JW: It’s funny that they all start to look the same. But when you’re doing this big blob, your only option for type ends up being a big, bold white type, because nothing else will show up on that background. People are really asking us not to do this anymore, because when you are scrolling on Amazon and looking at thumbnails, you are just seeing these little blobby things that look like camouflage, and you can’t see what’s happening in the background.
IP: I’ve been doing this since 1998. So I’ve seen a lot of trends, and in the aughts, it was achingly slow trying to get new trends in Canada going. But, lately, you blink and you miss it. I know from talking with booksellers that in physical stores they prefer if the covers don’t look alike. So they’ll actually try to place them far away from each other just to give the books a fighting chance. I’ll ask you guys: What are you seeing? Because I’m seeing pastels right now. I’m seeing super-washed-out pale pinks and yellows and sunrise colours.
JW: There are these covers where things are put into different segments, almost like a comic strip. But they’re not telling a story. It’s more abstract. It will have black outlines and different squares and then a visual on each section. And I find them really interesting to look at.
KCH: Do you find these trends limiting, or do you find them helpful?
IP: It helps me figure out how to connect with an audience right now. I mean, there are no new ideas anyway. I do work for smaller publishers who can take bigger chances and try to reach the audience. They want to promote, and the biggest and most cost-effective way is through the cover. So the cover becomes the promotional tool. And for it to follow a little bit of a trend, to fit in and stand out, is the sweet spot.
JW: It’s funny that they all start to look the same. But when you’re doing this big blob, your only option for type ends up being a big, bold white type, because nothing else will show up on that background. People are really asking us not to do this anymore, because when you are scrolling on Amazon and looking at thumbnails, you are just seeing these little blobby things that look like camouflage, and you can’t see what’s happening in the background.
IP: I’ve been doing this since 1998. So I’ve seen a lot of trends, and in the aughts, it was achingly slow trying to get new trends in Canada going. But, lately, you blink and you miss it. I know from talking with booksellers that in physical stores they prefer if the covers don’t look alike. So they’ll actually try to place them far away from each other just to give the books a fighting chance. I’ll ask you guys: What are you seeing? Because I’m seeing pastels right now. I’m seeing super-washed-out pale pinks and yellows and sunrise colours.
JW: There are these covers where things are put into different segments, almost like a comic strip. But they’re not telling a story. It’s more abstract. It will have black outlines and different squares and then a visual on each section. And I find them really interesting to look at.
KCH: Do you find these trends limiting, or do you find them helpful?
IP: It helps me figure out how to connect with an audience right now. I mean, there are no new ideas anyway. I do work for smaller publishers who can take bigger chances and try to reach the audience. They want to promote, and the biggest and most cost-effective way is through the cover. So the cover becomes the promotional tool. And for it to follow a little bit of a trend, to fit in and stand out, is the sweet spot.
by KC Hoard, The Walrus | Read more:
Images: Olga Beliaeva (Ghost Sequences), based on the photograph “Morning Tea” by Serge N. Kozintsev; Rodrigo Corral (Yoga); Lauren Peters-Collaer (The Vanishing Half).
Images: Olga Beliaeva (Ghost Sequences), based on the photograph “Morning Tea” by Serge N. Kozintsev; Rodrigo Corral (Yoga); Lauren Peters-Collaer (The Vanishing Half).
[ed. I was just thinking about this the other day while reading Paul Beatty's terrific book, The Sellout, which I'd been putting off for some time just because of its cover. Big mistake:]
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“At the zoo, I stood in front of the primate cage listening to a woman marvel at how “presidential” the four-hundred-pound gorilla looked sitting astride a shorn oaken limb, keeping a watchful eye over his caged brood. When her boyfriend, his finger tapping the informational placard, pointed out the “presidential” silverback’s name coincidentally was Baraka, the woman laughed aloud, until she saw me, the other four-hundred-pound gorilla in the room, stuffing something that might have been the last of a Big Stick Popsicle or a Chiquita banana in my mouth. Then she became disconsolate, crying and apologizing for having spoken her mind and my having been born. “Some of my best friends are monkeys,” she said accidentally. It was my turn to laugh. I understood where she was coming from. This whole city’s a Freudian slip of the tongue, a concrete hard-on for America’s deeds and misdeeds."
