Book cover research

I thought I would have a look at some of my favourite book covers from the books that I own and find out a bit about who created them and why I like them. When I went to my book shelf there were a few that really stood out to me straight away so I thought I would write about them. 

'The book of lost things' has a book cover designed by Rob Ryan, an artist known throughout the world for his paper cut art. This book cover is vital to my research because it is done using the medium that I want to use to create my book cover. I love the colours and composition that has been used, I think it really makes the book stand out with the use of bright red for the background. I also like the subtle bits of imagery such as the keys and the old man used throughout the cover that give hints to things in the book. the cover doesn't give any of the story away and makes it look mysterious which makes me want to read it more. It also has a strong use of typography which is what the penguin brief asks for so this book cover has helped me out in terms of ideas for the typography. 

'The girl who saved the king of Sweden' and 'The 100 year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared' are two very similar book covers that were created by Jonathan Pelham, a book cover designer from London. These books were both written by the same author and thats why they have the same style design. Although these book covers aren't created using paper cut I still think they look like they could have been because they both use very blocky colours. Although these covers mainly use simple shapes to make up the images they still maintain a very illustrative look. I think that my favourite things about these covers are the bright eye catching colours that are used and how the typography is used, these books both have a lot of text on the front but the way that it has been handled doesn't make it overpowering at all. looking at this book cover might help me if I decided to do a book cover for 'Oranges are not the only fruit' as that has quite a long title. 

The last book cover that really caught my was 'Mr Penumbras 24 hour bookstore' designed by Adam Simpson, It has a very graphic cover that focuses a lot on the typography but it cleverly incorporates imagery linking to the story in the book. I think that this book does a really good job of subtly liking the cover to the story as the cover is very modern and looks computer generated whilst still using slightly older colours, and the story incorporates both an old traditional book shop and very modern technology. I think it is the style and boldness of the imagery that attracts me to this book cover. The colours are also very bold and striking so that draws mw in a lot as well.  I would like to use this book cover for colour inspiration as they work quite well as modern retro colours. 

 Overall looking at these book covers has helped me to realise what I like in a book cover and I have noticed that they all have a strong use of colour and especially typography. This is something I am going to try and research and learn about because typography is not my strong point but I really love how it looks and i'm really interested in it.