A worthwhile overview of fiction covers though I did find it a bit over designed. The first thing I noticed when opening the book was a smaller one inside, the thirty-six pages carry the book's page numbers but it's 9 by 6.75 inches and has a cover on each page to reveal the essence of a book. I thought the inclusion of these shorter pages a nice touch.
The first chapter 'What a book cover is' has a spread with a complete jacket: the two side flaps, back, spine and front, it carries a handsome design by Peter Mendelsund. Any professional designer would agree that the complete jacket should be considered as one design unit but unfortunately, most publishers don't share that point of view so all the covers in the book are just that: the front only, no flaps or backs.
There must be several hundred jackets throughout these pages and they are various sizes, from whole page down to thumbnail size. With that number it obviously includes plenty of mediocre designs, an image (usually an illustration) with the typography just dropped on without any thought about integrating these two elements. This makes several Penguin books included stand out as they have always considered the cover elements should work together. Page 254 has nine French and Italian covers from Apple Books with beautifully simple graphics, flat colors and all the type in Helvetica. Interestingly the Helvetica is in upper and lower case which is a more European style for titles rather than the American all capitals.
I thought the book was rather over-designed, there are too many black pages with white type, several pastel colored pages and lots of captions are set sideways so the book has to be turned round to read them, this is no more than designer whimsy. Pages numbers are missing here and there: 87 to 93 or 271 to 278 for example.
This is an interesting addition to the slowly expanding collection of titles devoted to cover art so book and graphic designers will want to get a copy.
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