Michael Chabon’s New Book

Posted by trav in Book Column, Book Covers, Book Talk, Upcoming Titles      No comments

Mar
5

Chabon’s next book Telegraph Avenue doesn’t come out until September of this year, but Harper Collins did release the final cover a couple of days ago, via their catalog site. I wonder how many revisions they went through before everyone agreed on the red and the label was just retro enough… very cool! The blurb they offered up on the site:

The fictional world of Telegraph Avenue is grounded in Chabon’s deeply researched, lovingly painted pop culture of Kung Fu, Blaxploitation films of the ’70s, Jazz, and Soul.

This is one book that I can not wait to read this year.

Chip Kidd Video Talking About 1Q84 Book Design

Posted by trav in Book Covers, Book Design, New Releases      No comments

Oct
28

It’s always interesting hearing boko designers talk about their projects. Even better when it’s Chip Kidd. Here he is  discussing text and cover design for Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84.

Chip Kidd and James Ellroy video

Posted by trav in Authors, Book Covers, Book Design, Book Talk, On the Web      No comments

Nov
10

I recently ran across this video of Chip Kidd and James Ellroy. Though the video centers mostly on James Ellroy’s style and writing (he is one intense dude, no doubt) there are some spots where they discuss how the writing influences Kidd’s approach to designing a cover for the same author over and over. (Sidenote: Chip Kidd is also on Twitter as @chipkidd)

Buy a book just for the cover?

Posted by trav in Book Covers, Book Design, Book Talk, On the Web      1 comment

Mar
5

The folks over at the Abebooks blog have published their picks for 30 Books Worth Buying For the Cover Alone. Only seven of the 30 use photographs. So illustration seems to be the way to go if you want to get noticed in the cover design crowd (of course, these are all fiction titles).

I REALLY like these two:

But have to wonder about this choice:

The image just seems to literal and obvious to be chosen as worth “buying for the cover alone”.

Harry Penguins

Posted by trav in Book Covers, On the Web      No comments

Feb
17

Yet another edition of Cover Revisionist History, a designer has redesigned the Harry Potter books as Penguin Classics editions. I have a confession to make: I have not read the Harry Potter books (but I have seen almost all the movies, if that counts). But from what I remember, the images chosen for the covers are iconic enough to work. What’s really fun is that the designer says”Due to multiple requests I am making these images available as prints”. So that’s cool. I wish more of what I find when trolling the interwebs could be mounted on my wall.   

Movies as retro book covers

Posted by trav in Book Covers      No comments

Feb
5

Here’s a collection of popular movies reworked as retro book covers. The illustrations on these fanboy covers are fantastic and all look like something I would not be surprised to run across in a used book store.

Amazon’s Editors Need Glasses

Posted by trav in Book Covers, On the Web      No comments

Nov
20

Now, I’m no Alvin Lustig or Paul Rand, but does anyone at Amazon REALLY think these are the “10 Best Covers of 2008″ in all of the tens of thousands of books that were printed this year? Really?

I mean, there were some GORGEOUS covers done this year. Maybe Amazon’s editors just let some random number generator pick these. Even with the Chip Kidd cover included, this list is just weird, at best. Feel free to disagree and if you do, please explain why. I just don’t get it.

Judge A Book By It’s Cover

Posted by trav in Book Covers, Book Talk, On the Web      1 comment

Oct
22

Here’s a neat little time killer. JudgeBy.com displays cover images from Amazon and you have to guess what their 5-star rating is. I played for 20 covers and never got one right. I think it’d be more fun to play with just fiction covers or some sub-set, because once you get to a cover like

You really just can’t tell if all of the home schooling folks’ reviews were good or bad about this book. In reality, there isn’t much of a relation between “best-seller” and “good cover design”. You just have to look at the Best Sellers Lists in all the papers to see that, which is a shame. But this is a fun little time water built on the Amazon API though. Can you pick a best-seller simply by looking at the cover?

Batman in Japan

Posted by trav in Book Covers, Book Design, Upcoming Titles      No comments

Oct
20

The Book Design Review Blog has a good post on Chip Kidd’s Bat-Manga!, which features Batman as he’s been portrayed in Japan since the 60′s. The post also has videos as well as shots of the covers. I don’t speak Japanese, but I love the way that the characters in the Bat-symbol have the cowl points on them. Very cool stuff!

Book Cover Winner Announced

Posted by trav in Book Covers, Book Design, Events, News      No comments

Sep
29

Matt Taylor won the Penguin cover design competition we mentioned last week, for Sam Taylor’s The Island at the End of the World. Congratulations to him! It is, no doubt, one of the cleanest and well executed designs submitted, with some very complex imagery…

It’s almost too much. The synopsis just seemed to call for a simpler more representative image. But then my skills as an illustrator are often challenged by sitting in the floor coloring with my two-year-old.

Thanks to BDR for spilling the beans on the winners (because I sure couldn’t find any updates online). Click through to see the runners-up and such, too.