July 31

Book Covers

By Oronte

Ever wonder how graphic designers think about book covers? This site by design firm Fwis might be illuminating. They post images of new covers, do a short critique of each, and give other designers the chance to weigh in with comments. (They also write a column in Publisher’s Weekly, with extended select critiques.)

No doubt about it, design is a vital element in sales, and to my untrained mind a most difficult thing. Let’s say you wrote a novel based on some historical violence but which really is a love story of four couples, told by a communal voice that may be transmigrating souls. Which way would you go with the cover? Period photograph? Or art from some journal of the time, some of it beautiful and thematic, the rest humorless socialist realism? What about a garish painting depicting the actual event? Or something more abstract or from the natural world, spooky and lovely?

In the past, academic book covers were less than sexy, as our friends in advertising use the term. But as Inside Higher Ed has been reporting for some time, university presses often pin their hopes on crossover success, and that means catching the eyes of the public. (Here’s a forum on covers in academe, with members worrying about design elements for their books.)

But let’s face it: It’s still a sliding scale, with general interest titles getting the most care and attention, such as this good-looking volume of translations that’s very sexy indeed.

Textbooks are lower down the scale—because no one buys by choice?—but publishers seem to have been trying a little harder recently, with four-color covers instead of two, making possible sexy, gauzy nanocrystals.

Still at the bottom, I’m afraid—no doubt due to projected sales—are works of more specialized scholarship. This is an attractive cover, but would it have killed the designers to find a woodcut of its subjects fist-fighting outside a brothel?

I have another manuscript at a big uni press, and I’m hoping that if they take it, I’ll get to offer some input on the cover. I’m thinking…Speedo. On a monkey. Fist-fighting Immanuel Kant.

Comments

Nanocrystals, eh? Are you baiting me?

I wonder what the designers think of the O’Reilly technical-book covers, which are all 19th century engravings of different animals. No real relationship at all to the content, which is probably alright.

dallas, at 10:50 am EDT on July 31, 2008

Book covers, eh? I submit to you the following website, for your delectation and delight: http://www.judgeabook.blogspot.com/

Christine, at 11:55 am EDT on July 31, 2008

Some pesky details that authors like Churm might find helpful when contemplating future book cover suggestions:

Is that image you found while browsing your favorite website of adequate resolution to print on a cover, or will it turn into a fuzzy glob at book cover size?

Can’t decide which of your favorite images to choose? Resist the urge to suggest a collage. The small size of online book covers (on Amazon or faculty websites) seriously inhibits browsers’ ability to see collage elements.

Do you really dislike the color blue? Tell your designer or editor so that the manuscript you spent years toiling over doesn’t end up wrapped in shades of your worst nightmare.

Does the period painting you propose require considerable permission fees to reproduce? Can the image be manipulated (e.g., cropped, bled) to fit on a book cover, or are there restrictions on its use?

Want potential readers to notice the byline? Consider that the larger your name is, the less room there is on the cover for other design elements.

consider this?, at 3:30 pm EDT on July 31, 2008