Have you ever been seduced to buy or borrow a book, simply because the cover was so well designed? That’s why it’s worth getting cover design right. In this post, we’ve collected 53 excellent book covers in many different styles. These covers will inspire not only any book cover design you do, but your designs in other areas as well.
1. The Mad Ones
2. Bases Loaded
3. Love as Always, Kurt: Vonnegut as I Knew Him
4. Busted
5. Bow’s Boy
6. Wonderful World: A Novel
7. A Slow Death
8. We Must Love One Another Or Die
9. Red Harvest
10. The Vintage Book Of Contemporary Scottish Fiction
11. Censoring an Iranian Love Story
12. The Sheriff of Yrnameer
13. Disguise
14. Scenes of Academic Life
15. Something for the Weekend
16. Under the Clock
17. The Economics of Innocent Fraud
18. The Unabridged Pocketbook of Lightning
19. Otherwise Pandemonium
20. Judging Obscenity
21. Kid Rex
22. World as Laboratory
23. Treason by the Book
24. The Craftsman
25. The Manly Modern
26. Say You’re One of Them
27. The Memory of Running
28. The Girls Who Went Away
29. The Brief History of the Dead
30. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
31. The Good Rat
32. Backstory
33. I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson
34. The Bill from My Father
35. City of Tiny Lights
36. Salmonella Men on Planet Porno
37. The Mayor’s Tongue
38. Leather Maiden
39. The Dog of Marriage
40. The Tattoo Artist
41. Sun in a Bottle
42. Chances Are
43. Chicago
44. Final Exits
45. The Edifice Complex
46. The Female Thing
47. The Best American Crime Writing 2005
48. Then We Came to the End
49. Kockroach
50. Stiff
51. Animal Farm
<52. The Devil and Sonny Liston
<53. Devil in the Details
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I only read one book on the list: Animal Farm. BLAH. I hated it.
Nice list. Some of the covers are really interesting!
Animal Farm was one of the best books I’ve ever read. Maybe you just didn’t understand what the author wanted to say. If you are from the former Soviet Union: don’t feel insulted by the book, the story also applies to the french revolution and Stalin indeed was not good.
Oh, I understood what the author was trying to say, I just didn’t like how it was portrayed. I’m more of the straight forward type of person, not the “let’s hide the message in animals”.
I thought that book was nice
I like the cover too.
Shepard Fairy did that cover, he also remade 1984’s cover and its just as sick
I think it’s one of the only good covers on the list, to be honest.
Not a very good selection in my opinion.
A classic, one of the best books ever written. But, to each his own.
not impresive….
this is an unimpressive list, some of Michael Crichton’s book cover’s should be on here, such as Next, Jurassic Park – The Lost World, Sphere, to name a few. Not to mention other classic novels.
I don’t like all of them, but few yes they are inspiring. Thanks for sharing.
I’m going to disagree with the above posts, I think these covers are great, although they do falter a bit near the end.
Most of them are great showcases of expressive and original graphic design though. Personal favorite at the moment: ‘Love as Always, Kurt: Vonnegut as I Knew Him.’ Probably because I immediately thought, “Hey, this looks like a Vonnegut design.”
+1 This covers are all really good.
IMHO some of these book covers are not that good at all….like #5 and #7
how about the ‘The Secret by Rhonda Byne’…
anyway I like the #35 and #3
This is an unexceptional bunch, in my opinion. A few were very good, but the rest just seem to blend in, somewhat blandly, I might add.
nice old style
Fantastic article
Boring most of them. Why aren’t there any modern book covers?
The only ones I like, is the jamie oliver one because of it’s calm sunday morning feel, and the very last one, because of its pattern repitition and colors.
2,3,24,29 was good.. although not so inspiring
15, 17 and 37 the rest just made my scrolling finger hurt
Great topic! Some of the covers are really interesting for me but others are not and to be honest bit boring.
You can’t top this one though http://www.twitpic.com/8hoha
Really Benjamin?? Jurrassic park… A good entry would be “Sorry I Worried You” by Gary Fincke
here is the cover >>
http://www.amazon.com/Sorry-Worried-Flannery-OConnor-Fiction/dp/0820326569/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248368321&sr=8-1
Most one are rather average.
Not impresive at all.
This post only waste my bandwidth and time!
QQ much?
I love to see bookcovers as I am a bookcover designer myself. Great list for some much needed inspiration.
some of them are really, really good.
I thought the list was great. Most of the covers, I noticed, had double meanings or were just messed up and should have never been titled that way (i.e. #50: What “lives” do cadavers live other than on the table?; #33 is an ‘autobiography’ of Jackie Robinson that apprently “[He] never had it made”…
Funny misshaps or intentional…Regardless, I find not just good and horrible designs but a lot of humor as well, which is why I would have to agree with the list.
Cool collection. Funny how the majority of these are older books.
What an amazing post! Loved this!
I defintely buy a book if it’s cover is intriguing. I recently bought this one at goodwill: http://www.northshire.com/siteinfo/coverimages/0/1/4/014200362xa.jpg
still haven’t read it though
42 and 51 are good.
Uninspired
Most of them are quite horrendous, meaning the covers not the contents for those I cannot speak since I have never read a single one.
Some nice ones though
peace be upon u
some of the books are a good piece of inspiration but most of them belong to the covers that turn my mind away from the book !
thanks
Once again an interesting post that doesn’t contain crap trend art featured on 1000 other blogs, but rather art that is interesting and playful, gets negative comments.
These covers are great there is a variety, they are clever, humorous and show a strong understanding of design.
Just because a post doesn’t show you how to follow trends like sheep and mimic other people’s doesn’t make it uninspiring. “Current” covers (not “modern”) are fine but generally are over produced.
Also, wth is with the posts promoting books over the covers in relation to the topic. Yes, the cover should in some way relate to the content but being a fanboy here for you favorite book misses the topic entirely.
Thank you for this article!
Next week: Inspiring Cereal Box Covers!
do you doubt they exist? the Cap’n inspires me to get out of bed every morning.
Good collection
I think it’s a fantastic list.
What a great way to demonstrate how flexible and diverse a book cover can be.
Little disappointed with some of the comments…funny how negative some people can be…anyone would think they were paying you for their precious browsing time.
As for my two cents, for all those questioning the omission of Jurassic Park…good logo…average cover.
Keep up the good work.
Could not agree more.
Beautiful list of covers, great books.
Although feedback is always great, some people should really concentrate on adding to the topic rather than simply disagreeing. It would make more interesting conversations
.
I actually hate almost all of them but I dont want to say that I do incase people start attacking me, so Ill say the same thing I always say on Video Copilot…
“Oh wow, nice work keep it up Andrew Kramer”
Isn’t it funny one of the books is about a guy with the last name of Kramer? Even Andrew’s relatives are famous! Nice list, some are really cool.
All except a few are rather uninspiring…
for more go to http://bookcoverarchive.com/
A showcase of print media at last. Some interesting ones. I really thought I’d find “A Clockwork Orange” here.
http://covers.fwis.com/images/items/562.jpg?1229644463
they are easy to make, but the ideas are very nice
It’s more about design than technique.
Thanks for sharing
Great collection, some very inspiring designs.
I just love The Brief History of the Dead. Its terrific
“City of Tiny Lights” That’s my favorite one right there! I love the animate looking cities and towns. I know Comcast has been doing something like that recently in there commericials.
I thought the “busted” cover was quite clever.
A lot of these, if not all of them, appear throughout this site:
http://bookcoverarchive.com/
Some great, some not, but worth a browse for sure.
This one is really bad, only cover I “liked” was 13, rest is just old junk, not clever at all…
Ok, they might me creative. But they are all ugly covers, and I woulnd buy any of them. =D I buy beautiful covers. Creativeness comes next.
Design isnt just creating something new, but new AND good looking. These, and is MY opinion, are not book covers, but experiments.