Imagine you’ve walked into a bookstore, browsing for something new. Besides an explicit recommendation, how do you decide what to read? If you’re like most people, you reach for a book that looks interesting… based on the cover. Mokoto Rich of the New York Times discusses how the e-book era may prevent [...]

Penguin has put out a neat little series of videos with book designers talking about their favorite fonts. Why? As one designer puts it, “Choosing a font is as personal as choosing what color you might paint your bedroom.”

Have you ever wondered how book covers get designed?
This video shows how Orbit Books’ Creative Designer Lauren Panepinto designed the cover for an upcoming novel. The whole process took over 6 hours, but the video condenses that into just under two minutes:

On Orbit’s webpage, Panepito explains:
Trust me, no one wants to watch [...]

The subtitle of the blog The Hypothetical Library is “Imaginary Book Covers. Designed for Real Authors.” And that sums up this interesting little project nicely. Book designer Charlie Orr collaborates with real authors like Colum McCann, David Lehman, and Thomas Kelly to design covers for books that the authors have not written—and [...]

I can think of a bunch of uses for these supercool postcards featuring vintage Penguin covers. You could use them as snazzy thank-you notes to writer (or reader) friends. You could tuck them into gift books as bookmarks, or let them serve as reminders for books you’ve been meaning to read. You [...]

Did our last post on book covers convince you that cover design makes a difference? Want to try your hand at it? Design blog Venus febriculosa is running a book cover design contest for Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. The deadline is February 26, 2010, and the winner gets $1000.
More [...]

p>The old adage is right: you can’t judge a book by its cover. On the other hand, the cover still makes a difference. In a recent New York Times essay, satirist/memoirist Joe Queenan has a startling realization:
But in the next room, in the cabinet where I keep my unread books, I was stunned [...]

ernerable publisher Penguin has quietly been putting out a series of “Graphic Classics”–classic novels such as Moby Dick and The Three Musketeers with snazzy covers by prominent graphic artists.
Over at his blog, illustrator Michael Cho discusses designing the cover for the recent reissue of Don Delillo’s White Noise:
The first thing I did, of course, was [...]