A few favourite CanLit covers
Entertainment Weekly recently compiled a list of the 25 most memorable book covers from the past 25 years. Their list is slightly skewed toward ubiquitous mega-designer Chip Kidd, who scores six entries. The lone Canadian reference is Fred Marcellino’s 1986 cover for Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
We thought we’d play along by starting a list of our own favourite CanLit covers.
Below, you’ll find five picks from the bookshelf of Q&Q art director Gary Campbell. These bold, daring, and memorable covers grabbed him straight away, regardless of the title or the author’s name.
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The Bookseller Matt Cohen (Knopf Canada) Designed by Gordon Robertson, 1993 |
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Miss Wyoming Douglas Coupland (Random House Canada) Designed by John Gall, 1999 |
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This All Happened Michael Winter (House of Anansi Press) Designed by Bill Douglas, 2001 |
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Not Wanted On The Voyage Timothy Findley (Penguin Books Canada) Designed by Soapbox Design Communications, 2006 |
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The Boys In The Trees Mary Swan (Henry Holt) Designed by Lisa Fyfe, 2008 |
I have to say that the Miss Wyoming cover is one of my absolute fave covers of all time. Perfection.
Love This All Happened. Anything by Bill Douglas. You can start the resurrection of the House of Anansi Press with the joining of forces between then publisher Martha Sharpe and Bill Douglas.
I concur. Bill Douglas rocks. He was my hero in design school.
And speaking of favourite covers, what do you think about the idea of creating a series of covers to brand a common look and feel?. McClelland & Stewart has done a great job with The New Canadian Library. Some of the covers are gorgeous and the clean look is very attractive. http://www.mcclelland.com/NCL/index.html
Yet, somehow I feel cheated. Are the stories overshadowed by the marketing? Will booksellers line them up like boxes of cereal? Do readers collect books like kids collect hockey cards, because they look nice? I don’t know.
For me, the covers tell half the story – up front. I’m afraid that if I see a shelf of the new New Canadian Library covers I’ll float by it.
With that said, keep on featuring your favourite covers. Keep reminding us about the unique talents of Canadian cover designers, who make Canadian covers unique.
Kathleen Molloy, author – Dining with Death
www.diningwithdeath.ca
www.kathleenmolloy.offo.ca
www.lamortaumenu.ca
While the Penguin Modern Classics can be eye-catching and sleek–and that kitty definitely has a just-watch-me face–I do find their series tends to reek a bit too much of “look, i had a really good time clicking through photonica, corbis, and the like.”
None of the other covers here are really to my taste, although the Swan could be something in person. The screen captures don’t always do justice. If you want extreme spareness, try the hardcover jacket of Bill Douglas’s Pornographer’s Poem. BTW, it looks like Bill is currently repurposing Little Debbie boxes in his gallery.
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