Book Cover Archive blog

Lisa Fyfe, Art Director over at Henry Holt & Company, has new portfolio site up. You would do well to go give it a thrice over.

I’ve just added the Penguin Non-Classics cover for The Ballad of Abu Ghraib, and am curious to hear your thoughts on it. I find it timeless and wonderful, with a gravity rarely seen on the shelf. It is generic in its treatment in the same way that a Tschichold template is generic. Solid, well balanced, impactful. I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if someone pointed out that this was an obvious reference to an older cover. Fire away, if so.

What’s your take?

Received an amazingly well-timed email this morning from the talented Parisa Tashakori, a graphic designer working out of Tehran. View all of her work here.

The political philosophy of feminism

Ordinary people of routine life

Your eyes are color’s spring

send Work of Dionysus

Jinns

Anyone who’s in Boston or looking to be in Boston should give this a twice over. More details here.

(Thanks to Mr. Camlin)

The winners are up.

On the one hand, it’s just silly that the AIGA of all people can’t post larger images on their site. On the other, I’m not about to go through and track them all down, so I can’t point the finger too hard. Sorry about that.

Congratulations to all the winners.

Metal Mother is the work of Matt Dorfman. I can’t find much information about the guy beyond:
(a) he’s a talented SOB, (b) he does a lot of editorial illustration work for Nicholas Blechman and Leanne Shapton at the NY Times.

His site
His blog.

1) The Archive component of this site is doing its best to be a comprehensive resource for all the best contemporary book cover design available. This blog, however, isn’t. This is partly because I’m lazy and partly because there are other great book cover design blogs out there that I just assume you’re reading. Generally speaking, I try and avoid relinking news or designs from other sites. The community just isn’t large enough to merit that kind of redundancy (in my opinion).

I occasionally get worried that I’m not doing a good enough job posting the excellent work being featured on other sites, but I’ve recently come to the conclusion that that’s ok. God Bradbury invented RSS for a reason, right? So in case you haven’t seen it in the Footer of the main Archive, here’s a list of other book cover blogs you should really be checking:

Let me know if you notice any that I’m missing.

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2) I’ve had a number of people ask me about my involvement with Covers, the blog I used to run at my old firm, Fwis. I did the majority of posts at Covers for over three years. It was and continues to be a great site. However, just to clarify, I’m no longer with Fwis and I’m no longer involved with their blog in any respect. I haven’t made a post there for going on 10 months.

Sometimes book cover designer, Sam Potts brings you Twitter on Paper. It’s closing up shop for good this Friday, so better get your order in quick.

As someone who’s in Cambridge on an almost daily basis, I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now. Alex Camlin has outdone himself with this ridiculously nice redesign for The Harvard Review, a semi-annual(?) literary magazine out of ole’ Crimson.

The new covers are printed on a nice, toothy uncoated stock, and the books are bound with printed endpapers that repeat the pattern and color of the issue number (circle) that wraps around the spine.

Looking forward to seeing where he takes future editions.

Wave Books is an independent poetry press based in Seattle, Washington. Dedicated to publishing the best in American poetry by new and established authors, Wave Books was founded in 2005.

They’re doing an exemplary job of treating each of their books as a unique experience, with a huge amount of care put into each title. I can’t help but feel that books like this are a glimpse into the future of publishing. While most popular titles will go straight-to-digital, there will be a steady market amongst bookophiles who cherish the physicality of their collections, rewarding publishers like Wave Books for their infatuation with the printed word.

Oodles of respect to this small press for making design a priority.

Design by Stewart A. Williams

Design by Mary Ruefle, with J. Johnson

Design by Mary Ruefle, with J. Johnson

Design by Franck André Jamme & Wave Books

Design by Franck André Jamme & Wave Books

Design by Quemadura

Design by Quemadura

Design by Quemadura

Design by Quemadura

Design by Quemadura