“JUDGE a book by its cover.”: The importance of cover art in the publishing process.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” A phrase we have all heard in metaphorical use, or even when talking about a book itself. Although I agree with the use of the phrase in a metaphorical way, I do disagree with the statement in its actual contents as every book should be, and is, judged by its cover.
To me, the book cover is one of, if not the most important aspect of the publishment and promotion of the book itself with Brian Kenji Iwana stating in Judging a Book by its Cover, “Book covers communicate information to potential readers” (Judging a Book By Its Cover). It is this information that is presented by the cover art of a book that makes it so important, as it is the first thing you see when looking at a book itself.
Here, I will explore the many aspects as to what makes cover art so important to the outcome of a book, such as making it appealing to the audience to which the book is targeted, making sure that the cover art is accounted for when being compressed and changed for size purposes, the relationship of the cover art to the contents of the book to which it is representing, and how my experience on the Beyond the Walls project influenced this project.
An appealing Cover:
“The breakthroughs for digital typography came with the improvement of printer technology and onscreen software” (Bazerman 75) Charles Bazerman explains in Handbook of Research on Writing: History, Society, School, Individual, Text. This advancement in technology was a huge advantage for publishers as the ability to have complex, multi- coloured pictures on cover art became a reality, turning a new page in the future of typography. The advancements in typography begun in Germany during the mid-1400s as Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, sparking the beginning of the printing revolution. Before Gutenberg invented the printing press, the Bible was not freely available, causing him to gain notability through creating copies of the Bible.
Not only was Gutenberg responsible for the printing press and the first person to create copies of the bible, but he also invented topography, justification, columns, and hanging publication. In recent years, cover art has changed to focus more on the font used and how that will grab a reader’s attention, rather than the actual art on the text. Although publishers still desire the art of the book to stand out for a reader to pick up, the specific focus on the bold text used on the cover art is something that has never really been done before. By creating bold, eye-catching titles, it will make the print look livelier. As well as bold text, there has been an increase in modern art, with one example being April Genevieve Tucholke’s novel, Seven Endless Forests. Although much of the modern art is minimalistic, it gives cover art a modern approach, rather than copying the same cover art methods of the 20th century. Due to the cover art of the modern era being minimalistic, publishers now are creating designs that are simple and that a reader can immediately understand. Although this may seem as though the modern cover art is taking away that feeling of the visual elements of the story, publishers are doing this so that the reader is focused on one element of the cover art, and it is that one element itself that shows the content of the book itself rather than a complex image.
Although minimalistic art is a common trope in today’s age, photography has begun to become a theme in the design of cover art lately. The use of photography as the cover art is particularly new, especially due to advancements in technology allowing publishers to use photography but using real-life photography as the cover art of a book can create an instant emotional connection to a reader. One example of this is Ocean Echoes by Sheila Hurst with gives us a face of a woman on the cover art, creating an instant connection of that character in the story itself. Despite the fact recent cover art has followed the path of a modern, minimalistic approach, 2020 found a revival of cover art that was present in the 1970s and ‘80s. This nostalgic and retro design of cover art is present in books such as Just Another Mountain: A Memoir by Sarah Jane Douglas, giving it a feel for the times in which the book is set.
As with the change of cover art over the years, readers and people have changed as well. Technology is a huge factor when analysing the publication of a book, especially the cover art process and its advancements. It is adhering to what the people of today want as their cover art that holds a problem for publishers as the people of today are so different to those who were reading in the 21st century. Cat Yampbell explains this in more detail in her piece, Judging a Book by Its Cover: Publishing Trends in Young Adult Literature as she goes on to say:
“She concluded that teen marketing strategies should apply to marketing teen literature. Morgan suggested that publishers need to appeal to teens with short attention spans. She explained, “They’re the ones with five different screens open on their computer monitors, TV and music playing in the background” (qtd. in Kiesling 30). Graphic artists and CD cover artists are currently among the artists designing book covers. Innovative album covers have inspired the book industry.” (Yampbell 358)
It was with this approach, on how to market young adult literature, that the 2021 York St John University anthology, Beyond The Walls cover art was published as Michael Ayre, part of the team in charge of designing the cover art said:
“We looked at a couple of things when deciding how to make our particular cover design appealing to the reader’s attention. We understood the target market for this book, in which our ethos was “Made by young adults for young adults”, therefore we emphasised the requirement that the design be as contemporary as possible. In relation to our theme, we agreed that ‘Resilience Through the Unknown’ needed to appear powerful and explosive with bold and vivid colours and features in comparison to the previous ones that relied on minimalism for their more sombre theme.” (Ayre 2021)
When I was a child, the first memory that I have of being drawn to cover art was a copy of the ‘Beast Quest’ franchise, titled Sepron: The Sea Serpent. What made me attracted to this cover was my love for Dinosaurs and Lizards at the time and seeing this ginormous sea serpent on the cover of the book made me buy it. Since that book, I bought many titles from the ‘Beast Quest’ franchise, always drawn in by the cover art of a monster that I found so fascinating. When I look back at the ‘Beast Quest’ books, there is a huge difference in the cover art from what I used to read, to how they are presented now. Different font, and brighter, more colourful images dominate the new copies of ‘Beast Quest’, symbolising a transformation in time to attend to what would appeal to the children of today.
Compression and size changes:
When designing cover art, many obstacles and challenges that lie in the way of the finished product, the main challenge that publishers face, besides coming up with the actual cover art itself, is how the publishers themselves account for cover art when it is needed to be compressed and changed for size purposes. Mai Xu and Chen Li state in their piece, State-of-the-Art in 360° Video/Image Processing: Perception, Assessment and Compression, that “To measure the compression performance, visual quality assessment (VQA) is needed to evaluate the quality degradation caused by compression.” (Xu & Li 1). It is this degradation that causes problems for publishers to allow their cover art to still look as good when it is shrunk for purposes such as an e-book, or on a sales website.
It was in the 1980s when the compression of cover art became a topic for discussion among publishers, especially in the music industry. ‘ABBA’s’ 1982 album, The Visitors, was the very first CD ever produced, sparking the beginning of the need for cover art to be changed for size purposes. Charles Bigelow and Donald Day state in their piece Digital Typography:
“For example, not all digital typography can begin at high resolution. There are technical limitations on the size of the dot that can currently be reproduced by methods such as ink-jet printing, and the attainable resolutions are too coarse to escape visual detection...” (Bigelow and Day 108-9)
Although there have been huge advancements in technology, aiding publishers in this process of compression, to make cover art stay in its shape and not look blurry or hazy is still a difficult challenge, making the cover art production even more important than it ever has been.
Due to the CD first being produced in 1982, cover art that was produced before that time has been severely punished. One example of this is ‘The Beatles’ album, Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, often stated as one of the most famous album covers in history. Due to the 1967 album being filled with different images and colours, when the album was released into a CD, it did not look nearly half as good as the original copy on vinyl due to the images and colours being compressed and shrunk, making the album cover look ‘blotchy’.
To resolve this issue that is still present in the 21st century, publishers create cover art for book with idea of it being changed in size. The advancements in technology have caused a surge in different book-selling sites and e-book devices, such as ‘Amazon’ and ‘Kindle’ that have smaller cover art advertised than it may be on the book itself. Andrew Byrom, an experienced typographer and designer at York St John university said in an interview with me:
“I think designers have changed the way they work slightly over recent years (perhaps subconsciously) to create covers that can work small scale (for use on Amazon for example) and are flexible for use on screen. However, there are many beautiful covers that are being produced that have an amazing physical presence... with textured paper embossing, etc. I think there’s been a reaction to ebooks and a real resurgence in creating beautiful objects.”
Beyond the Walls:
The York St John Beyond the Walls anthology was the main influence for me writing this piece. Although I found listening and learning about all the parts of the publishing process to finally create the finished product interesting, there was just something that intrigued me about cover art as a whole and hearing co-founder of ‘Valley Press’, Jamie McGarry, and authors, Claire North and Tasha Suri put the icing on the cake for me as to why it is such an important part of the publication process and was why I wanted to investigate it thoroughly.
Being part of the podcast team for the Beyond the Walls anthology was something I was thrilled to be a part of as it felt so natural to have a conversation with great people about writing, the anthology itself, and opportunities in the university. Although our main focus on the podcast team was to create scripts, edit the scripts, and interview people, we had to choose the cover art for the podcast. This was harder than I anticipated as we wanted something that would relate to York but also relate to the theme for the anthology and the podcast itself.
The first cover art we chose was a picture of two gargoyles on the York Minster. We chose this image due to the minster itself being an iconic symbol of York, and the two gargoyles representing me and Luke, the other member of the podcast team. We thought this would be a good idea as it would create a comedic effect, looking as if the gargoyles were me and Luke are watching over York. However, this idea was not the cover art we chose in the end. Instead, we went with a simple picture of the York walls due to it relating to the name of the project at hand, and the picture of the wall on the cover art itself looked never-ending, representing a hopeful, resilient image of infinity.
Regarding the actual Beyond the Walls anthology itself, although I was not on the cover art team or helped design the cover in any way, I was eager to find out the process of designing it and was anxious to see the finished result. When I first saw the cover art for the 2021 Beyond the Walls anthology, I was completely taken back by how good it was and how much it related to the theme of the text itself. In my interview with Michael Ayre, he said:
“Regarding the design we chose as our cover, it was the most appropriate design that really grasped the sentiment that we wanted to capture in our cover design in relation to our theme. For example, we had an illustration of a flower breaking through a vine barrier - showing a beautiful example of resilience. However, it did not entirely fit with the second half of the theme being ‘Through the Unknown’ and compared to the current cover design it did not reflect the content as well. As a compromise, as we liked the illustration so much, we included it inside the anthology instead as it was a very strong image showing that uplifting spirit we were also looking for.” (Ayre 2021)
The cover itself is an incredibly powerful image that takes hold of the theme of the anthology. The theme of the text was ‘Resilience through the unknown’ so to capture both the ‘resilience’ and the ‘unknown’ in the cover art is exceptional from the team who created it and was the perfect cover art for this year’s anthology.
Before this year’s anthology, I had a copy of the 2018 Beyond the Walls anthology and the 2020 Beyond the Walls anthology. The 2018 copy was one that all of the ‘events and podcast team’ had available and one that we all discussed and used as an example to help us. The cover of that year’s anthology was also an influence towards the cover art of the 2021 podcast, showing the York Walls. Regarding the 2020 Beyond the Walls cover, I found myself attracted to that cover art. The time when the cover of the 2020 anthology was released was then the UK when into the first lockdown during the Coronavirus pandemic and that cover symbolizes this. A dark room with a window, showing hope that there is life still out there, something to look forward to in the future, something that gave me goosebumps when I first saw it.
Regarding the cover for this year’s anthology, it does differ from the cover art of previous years, but I especially like its connection to the 2020 anthology. As I have mentioned, the 2020 anthology cover art was decided due to the UK going into lockdown, and the 2021 anthology cover art was decided during the end of the pandemic, showing a transition from the negative to the positive, thus the use of the word ‘resilience’. Apart from relating the cover art to the climate of today, the team also had to create a piece that would attract ‘young adults’ and make something that they could relate to. Michael Ayre said:
“Looking back at previous editions of the Beyond the Walls anthology, they make use of minimalistic designs which fit the sombre sensations of their themes. For us, we thought for the theme of Resilience, it should be intense and uplifting in its features; so a minimalistic design would not be suitable as it would be too underwhelming for a reader. Nowadays, young adults are drawn to very artistic designs and bold aesthetics; which is why I believe our cover design is so unique to the previous years’ anthologies.” (Ayre 2021)
This use of bold aesthetics and artistic designs to attract the young readers of today is something I touched on earlier and is seen in the cover art of the 2021 Beyond the Walls anthology. Before this project, I had found myself attracted to cover art and it was a topic that I was interested in, but something I had never researched into or looked at in more detail. The project encouraged me to endeavour into how publishing works, something I never thought I would be interested in, and I have come out with a new love for it, especially how cover art is thought of, designed, and presented on the final piece.
Contents and Cover relationship:
Although the book cover is one of the most important aspects of the book itself, as well as being the first thing people see when looking for something new to read, it is the actual contents of the book itself that people buy a book for, the cover art can only influence the sale of the book, not change how good the contents of it is. So, how do the two relate?
Well, a poll was taken by ‘The Book Smugglers’, which asked 616 people if ‘covers play a decisive role in your decision to purchase a book?’ to which 79% of people said yes it does. That is how cover art and the contents of the book relate, the cover of the book must link in with the actual contents of the book itself to not let the reader down. For a reader to pick up a book and buy it for the cover art, only to be let down by the actual contents of the book not relating the image on the front is something that all publishers try to avoid, thus, creating the best cover art they can that relates to the book itself.
Although this is the aim for publishers, to create the best cover art they can, budgets do affect this as it says in Inside Book Publishing, “Reducing the production values on a book, for example by using cheaper paper or fewer colours for the cover, may harm the book’s sales.” (Clark & Phillips 170). This is a problem that a lot of independent book companies and publishers have regularly. Although independent publishers are great for new, upcoming authors to get their work published, due to them not having as much money like the big publishers such as ‘Penguin’ and ‘Macmillan’, most of the books published do not become as notable as those published by the big publishers. Despite this, things are slowly changing in the 21st century with more independent publishing companies getting more notability and recognition, such as ‘Eyewear Publishing Ltd’.
‘Eye Publishing Ltd’ is an independently funded publishing group that is based in London. One text that been published through these publishers is Secular Games by Alex Wylie, a poetry anthology that is a “poetic testament of our era in exacting, sensuous, restless language”. In an interview with Wylie, discussing the cover art for his text, he said:
“I requested a plain blue and white cover, but their designer came up with and executed the actual design sticking to my specifications. I wanted the cover to stand out in its plainness... I didn't disapprove of any designs, no. The first ones I saw are both the final published ones.” (Wylie 2021).
With his text, Wylie knew wanted he wanted with his cover and the publisher executed this with the final design, with the plainness of the cover standing out with only his name, and the title of the text over a blue background appearing as the cover art.
A common theme with cover art is how it changes over time to adapt to what people are looking at in the present day, especially when a text is made into a film. We have seen it with many books such as the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises, and even classic literature such as The Great Gatsby where the cover art of the book changes from the original image to the poster of the new movie itself. Cat Yampbell goes further into this in Judging A Book By Its Cover: Publishing Trends In Young Adult Literature as she says:
“If a cover has been out there long enough, the eye passes over it as something known. With classics you need to jog people’s attention now and then. If you can change the look and give books bright new packaging, people will look at them anew.” (Yampbell 360).
Although publishers do this to engage people into buying the book, publishing a book with the movie poster as the cover art can sometimes take away the originality of the text, making it seem artificial by removing something so synonymous with the text, and replacing it with a new edition that has not been created for the text itself.
One example of this that stands out to me is Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel, Jaws. The original cover art of that novel is, in my opinion, one of the finest and most perfect cover arts that have ever been created. The novel itself is horror related, but the cover is uncanny, eery, and downright scary. Although similar to the actual movie poster, the white ‘ghost’ of a shark that is depicted on the original cover art perfectly exemplifies the contents of the novel itself, a shark that kills and then hides until it finds its next victim, just like a ‘ghost’. Due to Jaws being made into a Hollywood blockbuster, and one of the most famous and recognisable films of all time, the cover art of the novel has changed to the poster of the movie, making the original copy a rare item. To buy a copy of the novel with the movie poster on the front will set you back around £9-10, whereas to buy a copy of the novel with the original cover art, that can cost as much as £100, due to how rare the original has become, with many people not knowing the original due to the film being released only a year after the novel was published, thus changing the cover art almost instantly.
Conclusion:
To conclude, many factors and components are combined to make a book the finished article, all of them important, but the creation and design of the cover art for a text is something that goes under the radar as most people do not realise how much effort is put in to create the cover art, and how important it is to sell the book, and for the actual book itself.
Making the perfect cover art for any text is hard, but as technology and the world changes, so does the process of design for the cover art, with the cover art of today being completely different to what cover art was like 20-30 years ago, challenges and obstacles that publishers face, such as creating cover art that can be compressed and changed in size, and relating the context of the book to the cover, as well as keeping its originality as much as possible are all major talking-points and discussion topics when discussing how important cover art is to the text itself, being a huge factor as to why the book is bought, and proving why you should always judge a book by its cover.
Bibliography
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