BY ITS COVER

Personal design series.

We have all heard the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover.”  This idiom advocates people not critique works (and commonly, people) based on appearances alone. And while of course I can agree with this, from a designer’s frame of reference this phrase never made sense to me; why have a cover at all if people are meant to just ignore it? 

With this in mind, I set out to try and dissect what makes a book cover work. It is critical to work in a more backwards, deconstructive way in order to understand the parts that make up the work. There are a variety of styles found in book design, all of which have their strengths and weaknesses. In my design philosophy, I treat my covers as if they were movie posters. I find it easier to work in this frame of mind as it allows me to focus on structure, imagery, and typography.