Do all book covers look the same today? Euronews Culture goes under the dust cover with those that design them. Go into any bookshop and you’ll see a smorgasbord of design styles. There will be the big, bold, blocky text covers; the abstract image covers; the hand-drawn lettering in twee frame covers; the photograph covers.
All of these are trying to communicate something to you. It’s the publishers' first opportunity to impress upon readers information about genre, themes, similar books, and even the reader’s own age and gender. A good cover can help a book reach its intended audience, while a bad cover might be the reason a new author never gets the opportunity to publish a follow-up.
It wasn’t always like this, though. Up until the 19th century, book covers were merely an extra piece of paper intended to protect the book from damage and dust before purchase. “It is where we get the term ‘dust jacket’ from to describe the detachable covers that feature on hardback books today,” explains Dr Michael John Goodman, designer and expert in print culture.
“These books were wrapped up in plain paper, and when a reader got them home they would rip this dust jacket off like the gift paper on a birthday present,” he says, remarking that an unfortunate side effect of this practice is few remain today for historians to study. Everything changed when British literary periodical ‘The Yellow Book’ started publishing dust jackets with images on them, designed by Aubr.