The new Faber and Faber: Eighty Years of Book Cover Design has hit the shelves in the UK.
They were kind of enough to send me a copy a couple weeks ago, so I’ve had some time to pour over this amazing resource. The short of it: make it a priority to pick it up. (Note that there are a couple independent sellers offering it up in the US. Also note that in the interim, you can check out Faber Book’s Flickr account, which updates fairly regularly.)
I count over 650 covers, many of them taking up a full page of the sizable 11″ format. The book doesn’t have much use for writing, packing each page with cover after cover. This dominance of design is wonderful, but it seems to have been done at the sake of handy indexing or cross-referencing. I may be spoiled by the ubiquitous hyperlinking of the Internet, but the fact that there is no way to reference a design or page to its designer is frustrating. The index is instead organized by surname, which is useless unless you know exactly who you’re looking for, and I’m just not that well-informed.
This apparent oversight is more than compensated for by the thoroughness and quality of the collection. There isn’t a page in the book that doesn’t contain something drool-worthy. All-in-all an inspiring and highly recommended experience.
Must get. And cheaper here, apparently: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9780571240012/Faber-and-Faber-Eighty-Years-of-Book-Cover-Design
Oh man, oh man, this is gorgeous. I hope they release it in the States…so far it’s only available as a UK import.
love those Kundera covers.
This is a must have. someone realized that there is a huge market of book designers willing to buy this stuff. I would not be surprised if there is a surge in compendiums like this from every major publisher in the next few years.
Great stuff. The link to the Faber Flickr collection is dead, though – can you provide the actual link?
Thanks!
Fixed. Sorry about that.
Holy shit I am buying this for sure.
Pardon my language.
[...] {Images from the Book Cover Archive} [...]