Resources
These links are worth bookmarking! Explore a curated collection of articles, educational videos, and expert tips to elevate your understanding of book cover design and the role of the book cover designer. Be sure to explore our blog for even more!
More on Book Covers
- Spine Magazine covers creative and production aspects of the book publishing industry with a primary focus on the author’s process and book cover design
- Black n Brown Book Designers is an amazing resource “created by and for underrepresented designers of color”
- The Book Cover Archive, the OG
- Designer David Fassett made this great video documenting his process of creating a book cover from start to finish.
- It’s already been viewed 2.6 million times, but in case you missed it: Chip Kidd’s TED Talk
- The Casual Optimist is a blog maintained by Dan Wagstaff, a book enthusiast and book marketing manager based in Toronto.
- The Book Cover Review is a brand-new site from David Pearson. “The site features 500ish-word reviews of beloved book covers from a range of great voices.”
- CoverJunkie: “A celebration of creative [magazine] covers & their ace designers.”
Articles About Cover Design
FastCompany
- December 2023: The Best Book Covers Are The Ones You’ll Never See
SpineMag
- January 2025: Hyper-Realistic Photography on Book Covers
- December 2024: Minimalism vs Maximalism
PRINT Mag
- October 2023: 11 of the Most Dangerous Book Covers in America
- September 2023: Top 10 list plus an INABC shoutout
- May 2023: Dave Eggers’ bamboo hardcovers
- July 2020: Faber’s 90th Anniversary Series, plus the backstory from Faber Art Department
- March 2020: 20 cover iterations of The Plague
- October 2018: John Gall And The Art of Collages
- October 2014: The Story Behind Penguin Drop Caps (with Paul Buckley and Jessica Hische)
- August 2010: Five Questions for Paul Buckley
- November 2009: Redesigning Nabokov for Vintage Books
- June 2007: Helen Yentus, Designer Profile
LitHub
- August 2023: Math Monahan on creating the cover for The Lookback Window
- August 2023: Pablo Delcan and Jamie Keenan Discuss the Evolution of Their Designs for the Same Book
- May 2022: Author Peter C. Baker in conversation with cover designer Linda Huang about Planes
- May 2022 Author Jeff VanderMeer in conversation with cover designers Alex Merto and Tyler Comrie
- March 2022: The Story Behind Jonathan Franzen’s New Backlist Book Cover Redesigns
- January 2022: 59 Years of covers for The Bell Jar
- December 2021: Every New Directions cover for Clarice Lispector
- December 2020: Who wore it better? US versus UK covers
- October 2020: 2020 Is The Year of Enormous Pink Lady Faces on Book Covers
- November 2018: How to Capture Alternating Plot Lines on a Book Cover
- July 2018: Charlotte Strick on designing the Rachel Cusk trilogy
- May 2018: Celebrating The Art of The Book Cover
- April 2016: How To Kafka Better
AIGA Eye on Design
- October 2022: Five Beautiful Book Covers and the Stories Behind Them
- July 2022: A roundtable discussion on publishing in the age of Bookstagram
- February 2022: Why Do Some Authors’ Books Get a Branded Look?
- November 2021: Holly Ovenden profile
- June 2021: Six Great Book Covers and the Stories Behind Them
- September 2021: Book Branding
- June 2020: Shimmer, Neon, Nature – Book Design Trends
- August 2019: Why Do So Many Book Covers Look the Same? Blame Getty Images
- July 2019: Jo Walker profile
- May 2019: Career vs. Passion – An Interview with Kelly Winton
- June 2018: Helen Yentus, When The Struggle is Part of The Process
ElectricLit
- August 2019: 10 Rejected Book Covers That Almost Made the Cut
- May 2019: The Battle of the Book Cover: U.K. versus U.S.
- July 2018: What 11 Books Looked Like Before the Final Cover
It’s Nice That
- September 2022: Special Canadian series featuring a range of artists
- August 2022: Five Studios to watch
- April 2022: Alex Merto profile
- October 2021: Tom Etherington’s Penguin series
Bridgeman Images
- May 2023: Faceout Studio shows how they incorporate fine art into modern designs
- June 2022: Interview with Myunghee Kwon
- April 2022: Interview with Stephen Brayda
New York Times
- February 2025: Na Kim profile
- December 2024: Hot New Book Trend: Deluxe Editions
- February 2022: How a Book Is Made
Listen
- Cover Meeting: A Podcast started by Steve Leard in 2023
- Spine Magazine Podcast offers 3 seasons of interviews with amazing cover designers
- Design Matters: Debbie Millman’s podcast on design. Featured interviews: Chip Kidd (2013), Peter Mendelsund (2011)
- Thoughts from a Page – Interview with Christopher Lin
- Unknown Origins – Interview with Paul Buckley
- Jon Gray featured on the podcast “On Margins“
Books About Cover Design
- The Design of Books by Debbie Berne.
- The Look of the Book by Peter Mendelsund. Read an excerpt here.
- Cover by Peter Mendelsund. Read an excerpt here.
- Penguin 75 by Paul Buckley
- Classic Penguin by Paul Buckley
- Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005
- Book One by Chip Kidd
- Book Two by Chip Kidd
- Seven Hundred Penguins
- Faber and Faber: Eighty Years of Book Cover Design
- Lolita: The Story of a Cover Girl, featuring cover designs by eighty renowned graphic designers and illustrators.
- Book Cover Designs by Matthew Goodman
- No No No No Yes, a record of killed covers
- Sayonara by John Gall
- John Gall Collages
For Students
- You’re in luck: Steven Attardo, Catherine Casolino, John Gall, Chip Kidd, and Peter Mendelsund have all produced courses. Read this blog post and see how you can learn from these giants!
Award Groups
Annual Roundups
- LitHub: 2024 • 2023 – 2022 – 2021 – 2020 – 2019 – 2018
- The New York Times: 2024 – 2023 – 2022 – 2021 – 2020 – 2019 – 2018 – 2012
- The Washington Post: 2023 – 2022 – 2021
- Print Mag: 2024 – 2023 – 2021
- Creative Review: 2023 – 2022 – 2021 – 2020
- Fast Company: 2022
- The Casual Optimist: 2024 – 2023 – 2022 – 2021 – 2020
- Spine Mag: 2024 – 2023 – 2022
- ABCD: 2025 – 2024 – 2023 – 2022 – 2021 – 2020
