Book Cover Trends

Something rather interesting is taking shape in bookstores. Book designers are now thinking one step ahead in order to give a unifying look to a specific kind of book covers. By trends, I am assuming something that takes place in time, relatively recently. I will leave the term ”relatively” aside since we could debate forever how long a trend needs to take place to exist, (and to fade away), especially in the age of the Internet.

The best example I could find of this trend are the books from the True Blood American television drama series, Camilla Lackberg thrillers, and Stieg Larson with the Millenium trilogy.

The book covers for the True Blood french version distributed in Canada were shot by the same photographer, Maude Chauvin, while the Larson trilogy was done from different artists, (Isabel Samaras in one case). More than just a common creative direction, the designers seems to have taken into account how the books would look once displayed side by side. The True Blood covers are going one step further with different body parts, a bit like a puzzle giving a better idea of the story once completed. That is truly interesting, and this is where designers should move forward not only with a coherent creative direction, but with covers functioning like keys, by giving individual responses to bigger problems (television drama) that can be better understood only once all the covers/CD/DVD jackets can be seen on display.

I guess we can also expect more of the same stylistic approach for classic book re-edition from famous authors. Something cool to keep an eye on, clearly aimed for brick and mortar bookstore shoppers.

Adios all.