Beautiful book covers

Alessandra Kelley · Aug 1, 2012

Here's a place to showcase great book cover design and illustration, those books that stopped you in your tracks, their covers were so amazing.

Please link to the covers; don't hotlink them into this thread unless you have the copyright owners' express permission.

Wherever possible, include the illustrator's and designer's names.

I'd like to start with a set of three covers for the Australian editions of Celine Kiernan's Moorehawke Trilogy, which won the Australian Book Design Award for best designed children's series last year. I love them because they're unusual (one almost never sees atmospheric pen-and-ink rendering like this) and they work well to make a panoramic image.

Here are the cover images.

The covers were designed by Bruno Herfst and illustrated by Elise Hurst.

Filigree · Aug 4, 2012

Those are gorgeous. I also suspect they would fail utterly in the American market, and I'm a little hesitant to say why (because I'm going to have to work hard to keep it from a rant). Or perhaps the children's market in the US is more open to drawn and painted covers? The YA market certainly seems swamped with Photoshopped-from-model pieces.

BigWords · Aug 4, 2012

I can't remember the author, never mind much else about it, but there was a mid-forties (?) novel called King Harold's Son which had the single most awesome fully-painted viking cover I have ever seen - a fantasy version, IIRC, but one of the few covers I can think of seeing and wishing I could do something so cool...

OC-138 · Aug 4, 2012

The chinese cover for the name of the wind is gorgeous.

maxmordon · Aug 4, 2012

I always found this cover of Autumn of the Patriarch to be haunting, and I always loved this painting from The Feast of the Goat's cover. Apparently is a Italian mural called "Allegory of the Bad Government".

juniper · Aug 4, 2012

I meant to post in AW about one I saw last fall at Wordstock Book Fair in Portland, Oregon. It was from McSweeneys and had 3 (3!) dust jackets, each cut a little differently so that they could all be seen at once, and they worked together beautifully. Wonderful paper, not just shiny stuff, and then taking off the dust jackets revealed a wonderful cover too, and it was all so beautiful I was going to buy the book just for the cover(s) ... but didn't and now I can't find it on their website.

But I think they do a great job with many of their books. Here's a link to their current fiction.

https://store.mcsweeneys.net/t/categories/books/fiction

LucyGray · Aug 5, 2012

So I'm not the only one who buys a book for the cover? Or doesn't buy a book because of the cover. I am amazed by the crappy shimmery photo covers on many self-published books these days. If you're proud of your writing, why settle for a photo of your cousins in period garb pretending to be vampires? Hmm, that sort of answers the question, doesn't it?

Pinguicha · Aug 5, 2012

I've read two books with beautiful covers recently. Both YA. One was Jodi Meadows's Incarnate. The other was Wither by Lauren DeStefano. Incarnate's cover was exceptionally striking and fit the book perfectly.

aibrean · Aug 6, 2012

http://briangartsi.de/#harry_potter
While they aren't actually "real", I think these are a beautiful re-work (you might need to use the menu to get there).

http://www.goodreads.com/book/photo/9413044-everneath
I'm a sucker for typography and I love the title and how it flows just like the dress.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/photo/6644117-the-iron-king
Same reasons, plus I like the human element.

Filigree · Aug 6, 2012

Kristin Painter's covers are gorgeous, and so different from the standard Photoshopped model trope. I haven't read the books, but the covers pull me in.

http://kristenpainter.com/

Beautiful book covers

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian

Filigree

Mildly Disturbing

BigWords

Geekzilla

OC-138

maxmordon

Penúltimo

juniper

Always curious.

LucyGray

Pinguicha

Has the cutest cat in the world!

aibrean

Author, Designer, Imaginative Being

Filigree

Mildly Disturbing