Book Covers

In The Jacket Designer's Challenge:To Capture a Book by it's Cover Peter Mendelsund is interviewed and he reveals some of his designing process. According to Mendelsund a book jacket has two primary jobs: to represent a text, and to sell it. I would not appreciate not getting as good of a book cover because I wasn't dead, would you? Mendelsund doesn't feel the pressure of having to impress the author with the cover so he doesn't hold anything back when he creates covers for books whose authors have passed on.

The process. The book must be read before a cover can be done, then Mendelsund looks over the notes that he put on the manuscript. He sometimes makes a sketch or collage, he may work on a computer design. After the cover is made he puts it on the book and tries to forget about it. I have to do this with my artwork and essays that I have been working on for a long time so that when I revisit it my mind is fresh and can see the errors clearer.

Mendelsund has written two books himself, I am interested in reading Cover. It is a collection of hundreds of his book covers and commentaries on his technique. The other, What We See When We Read is about how words gibe rise to images in our minds.

Which of the books would you like to read more, and why? Have you read any books that had the cover designed by Mendelsund? What do you think of his work?

"The Jacket Designer's Challenge: To Capture A Book By Its Cover." NPR. NPR. Web. 28 Oct. 2014. .