Wednesday, July 21, 2010

the power of good book cover design


I have a bit of a penchant for book cover design. Confession time:  if a book has a good cover, I am more likely to read the blurb/the book. Yep. I'm completely superficial.

As if I didn't need another reason to love Faber and Faber, they've just released this series of retro two-tone covers for some of their best-loved poet’s first published editions. It follows the first set which was black and white, and just as beautiful.



Even better, the print designer Miriam Rosenbloom explains on the awesome Faber and Faber blog, the Thought Fox (as an aside, what a great name for a blog), how she was inspired by the illustrations in a 1960s book of Frances Cornford's poetry.

There's also a whole flickr set devoted to the covers here.

2 comments:

Thora and Dean said...

um...yes. i know they say to not judge a book by it's cover. pfft! it's all about the cover - initially anyway.

and then sometimes, slowly, if you've somehow managed to get past the cover and delve into what turns into a great read, you grow to love the tackiness/tattiness/whatever it is that turned you of in the first place...

soph said...

So true - but it's quite an obstacle to begin with.