Cover design round-up: July 2021

Hello, and welcome to a selection of our favourite book cover designs from July's publication schedule.

Since the last post, The Bookseller and its crack features team announced its Rising Stars of 2021. Joining a number of book design alumni from previous years, many of whose names will be familiar to regular readers of these round-ups (Carmen Rodriguez Balit, Hannah Wood, Jack Smyth, Rafi Romaya, Matthew Young, James Jones, Sinem Erkas, Coralie Bickford-Smith, Emma Grey Gelder, Lucie Stericker) are a trio of designers: Micaela Alcaino, Holly Ovenden and Kishan Rajani. Congratulations to all three: do seek out their work, and show some love. There's also been plenty of fanfare for

: Michaela Cole's Misfits, designed by Jack Smyth himself. And well done to gal-dem for crediting Jack in the reveal tweet, too.

There are some fantastic covers in this month's selection, led (for me) by Sophie Hollington and Sophie Harris' work for Dialogue Books on the trippy-as-hell cover for Sarvat Hasin's The Giant Dark. There's also a graphic novel from Dimitris Anastasiou, whose illustrations are absolutely spectacular, and a striking series rebrand from Vintage's Suzanne Dean, which may be familiar to some readers.

Until next time...

 

     

Katie Mack's The End of Everything (Allen Lane) was designed by Tom Etherington. Test Signal (Bloomsbury/Dead Ink) was designed by Luke Bird.

 

     

Pure Invention by Matt Alt was designed by Alice Marwick, with art direction from Bekki Guyatt, for Constable. The Giant Dark by Sarvat Hasin (Dialogue Books) was designed by Sophie Hollington and Sophie Harris, and it's a belter. There's a blog about the cover's creation over on the Waterstones blog, which comes recommended.

 

     

James Weston Lewis illustrated the cover of John Lewis-Stempel's Woodston (Doubleday), with art direction from Beci Kelly. My Mess is a Bit of a Life by Georgia Pritchett was designed by Holly Ovenden for Faber, with art direction from Donna Payne.

 

     

Laura Bird designed and art-directed Jenny McLachlan's The Battle for Roar, using illustration from Ben Mantle. That one's for Farshore. An A-Z of Pasta was designed by Saffron Stocker for Fig Tree, with art direction from Richard Bravery.

 

     

Emma Pidsley designed Rivka Galchen's Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch for Fourth Estate, while Luke Bird created the jacket for Sayaka Murata's Earthlings (Granta).

 

     

Won-Pyung Sohn's Almond uses a US cover design, by Stephen Brayda, for the edition published by Harper. Vaseem Khan's The Dying Day (Hodder) was designed by Jack Smyth, with art direction from Lewis Csizmazia.

 

     

Julie Ann Conlin's Love, Hope (Hodder) was designed by Lydia Blagden, with illustration by Mal Fisher. Holly Ovenden designed Valeria Parrella's Almarina for John Murray.

 

     

Two Jonathan Cape titles are up next. Kishan Rajani designed A=–A by Dimitris Anastasiou; if you aren't familiar with Dimitris' work, it's fantastic and living here. Suzanne Dean designed the jacket for Jeanette Winterson's 12 Bytes, using images from Trevillion, Getty and the Science Museum. Now, where's my flames emoji...

 

     

Suzanne Dean also designed the cover for George Packer's Last Best Hope, another Cape title. Lorna Scobie created the jacket for Ben Newman's Rumble Tumble, for Macmillan Children's Books.

 

     

Clare Shepherd designed Lisa Blower's Pond Weed, for Myriad Editions, while Alex Cotter's The House on the Edge (Nosy Crow) uses artwork by Kathrin Honesta, and typography from David Dean.

 

     

Riverrun's issue of Jenniger Hofmann's The Standardization of Demoralization Procedures is, at this writing, a John Doe; if you know who is responsible, do let us know. Ayad Akhtar's Homeland Elegies (Tinder) was designed by Lucy Kim.

 

     

Another unidentified cover comes in Hank Green's A Beautifully Foolish Endeavour (Trapeze); again, reach out if you know who the guilty party is here. Pablo Declan (of Declan & Co) designed Verso's edition of Romain Felli's The Great Adaptation.

 

     

There's been a lot of love in the internet for the design of Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn, which was created by Anna Morrison. Once more you can read all about it in a blog over at Penguin Books. Julia Connolly designed Annie Garthwaite's Cecily. Both titles are published by Viking.

 

     

Nathan Burton designed Stephen Spotswood's Fortune Favours the Dead (Wildfire), with art direction from Patrick Insole. W W Norton's edition of Richard Zenith's Pessoa is another unidentified at this writing, and what a shame, as it's a cracker.

 

     

Two Yale University Press titles to end: Susan Tomes' The Piano, and Jan Lucassen's The Story of Work. The former was designed by Studio Helen, the later by Studio Muti, both under the eye of design manager Rachael Lonsdale.