45 Beautifully Designed Book Covers
Posted by Andrew Lindstrom / Lists / June 11th, 2009
I would imagine that nobody hates the expression don’t judge a book by its cover more than an actual book cover designer. Obviously, the metaphor isn’t really about books – but still, that’s gotta sting a little.
Let’s face it, if people didn’t actually “judge books by their covers”, there would be a lot of graphic designers out of a job. The need for company branding, attractive packaging or promotional material of any kind would be non-existent; thus leaving the lowly graphic designer nothing short of obsolete.
So in the spirit of judging books by their covers, I’ve compiled a list of 45 beautifully designed book covers that I find inspiring. Did I miss any that inspire you?
Moral Relativism – Source
The Brief History Of The Dead – Source
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Source
The Microscope and the Eye – Source
Lowboy – Source
The Kiss – Source
Who Is Conrad Hirst – Source
The Collected Poems of Tennessee Williams – Source
Spade & Archer – Source
When You Are Engulfed In Flames – Source
Send Me – Source
The Separation – Source
Payback – Source
A Monster’s Notes – Source
The House of Sleep – Source
The Annotated Nose – Source
Death in the Andes – Source
Day In Day Out – Source
The Tax Inspector – Source
When We Were Romans – Source
The Customs of the Kingdoms of India – Source
Kafka on the Shore – Source
Forgetting Things – Source
Strawberry Fields – Source
Obsession: A History – Source
On Seeing and Noticing – Source
Before The Big Bang – Source
Sea of Poppies – Source
The Humbling – Source
Leviathan – Source
Sedaris – Source
Freakonomics – Source
City of Thieves – Source
Bodies – Source
Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Source
The Error World – Source
Faraway Places – Source
Cool It – Source
The Gum Thief – Source
Company of Liars – Source
The Good Rat – Source
The Murder – Source
In The Cut – Source
American Nerd – Source
How To Speak At Special Events – Source
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References
Yo, I'm Andrew Lindstrom. I am a freelance web designer based in Vancouver, Canada. When not geeking out over design, I'm likely geeking out over film, technology or pretending to play the guitar.
Great compilation. Day In Day Out is my fave.
Great compilation.
Oh, why do I not actually own the identified edition of several books on this list. An enjoyable compilation! Thank you.
“Moral Relativism” and “When we were Romans” are my favorites.
A good collection, indeed.
Really nice list, loved most of them!
Spade & Archer made me stop scrolling (in a good way!)
Great and inspiring collection. I knew a number of these, but some of the best here I haven’t seen before – thank you for the post!
Love some of these!
I’ve also always loved this cover:
http://www.milkweed.org/component/page,shop.product_details/flypage,shop.flypage/product_id,832/category_id,52/option,com_phpshop/Itemid,8/
Although the updates are far between, the posts are incredible. Thanks for the work.
great recopilation!
de lujo!
A beautiful collection as usual.
But the cover of “When You Are Engulfed In Flames” is really not an original cover.
In deed, it is a Van Gogh’s painting
The Gum Thief is so so clever. I dont know about the book though. Love all of them
Great collection.
Beautiful collection! All very clever, thank you
Great compilation. I’m really glad I’ve embedded your RSS in http://2dfor3d.com – your blog is always full of great inspiration for my students : )
Cheers,
Mike
http://DigitalArtPrintGallery.com
I tweet @pop_art
Great collection….very creative…Thank you.
Awesome collection of book covers…verry nice for inspiration, thanks
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?? curious that you’d use the word “beautiful.” i find this entire thing pretty useless. never mind, it’s just one opinion.
“Bodies” is my favorite – very creative design.
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The updated version of Freakonomics has an updated cover as well, I think it might be worth looking at.
http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/11740000/11749307.jpg
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beautiful post!
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wow they’re all brilliant design.
i like ‘payback’ the most.
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Nice findings. I love The Microscope and The Eye. By using images to replace words is an art of its own.
Wonderful compilation. Thanks for sharing! I love it when publishers reprint classics with beautiful book covers. I think it’s a great way to entice people to read books that are (usually) great to begin with, but aren’t noticed because of standard covers that all look alike.
Your blog’s design is lovely — simple but with nice little details. The footer wallpaper is awesome, stains and all.
beautiful ones. thanks very much. I LIKE THE CAR ONE….round ..round…lol
Wonderful !!! Thanks for sharing! I love it
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BRAVO .. Nice very Nice ..
Wow…very nice.
The original Jurassic Park book cover by Chipp Kidd. It’s very rare that a book jacket is kept for the movie logo and all its merchandise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jurassicpark.jpg
Wonderful compilation. Thanks for sharing! i like it
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Amazing blog – excellent
awesome work there which you sharing for another great inspirational stuff. thanks
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Muy buen blog de diseño grafico! great blog! thanks from Argentina.
[...] picked out a few of my favorites from the list of 45 at Well Medicated. I often wish I had a small, inconspicuous camera (oh how I need an iPhone!) when browsing [...]
Love your book covers. thought you might like to see front and back of “william m. locke collection”. The red and gilt cover is a copy of a “colt casing” which Colt (gun mfg.) issued a hollowed out version to hide the colt pistol . In the 1850′s pretty embossed books were common in a gentleman’s library. Maybe i’ll see it on your site some day. m.g.
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Great post. I own about 9 of those books.
I love some of the books for the cover more than the words inside.
Good collection. Very Well done
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well, a good design certainly make a good product looks even better!
Sedaris is my favorite
i likes this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0981261205/sr=8-1/qid=1256324632/ref=dp_image_z_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books&qid=1256324632&sr=8-1
but i also think the publisher’s logo is fantastic: http://theworkhorsery.ca/TheWorkhorsery/HOME.html (at the top of the page)
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Fantastic collection, I’m not really a book person. But I sometimes almost pick up books that look amazing, although I’ve never really seen any as good as these.
Did the covers sell more books than some other cover would have? Sorry folks, but in the end it is about the book.
wow! amasing… love it, yeeees
incredibly cool cover!
Although one should not JUDGE a book by its cover, no one ever said one should not CHOOSE a book by its cover. Some of my favorite reads have been so chosen….
I absolutely loved all of these. Gave me plenty of new design ideas.
Nice, I’m big fan of books so this was a good post for me. (By the way, came in from Stumble via your post on getting blog traffic for $20, so this is one stumble guy who stuck around!)
I particularly liked ‘The Brief History of the Dead’
A great list. I think Blindness by Jose Saramago should be included too.
I’ve seen alot of books with much better covers than what was shown, some of them weren’t even that interesting but thanks for your attempt
that is why i always judge a book by its cover
Moral Relativism is my favorite
that’s another reason why i judge a book by the cover
I used to think there was no excuse for having an unread book but now I’m not so sure. great design
Very nice about the designed bookcovers..Its very useful to designers to design a book covers..Nice collection.Thanks for sharing
I really am partial to Sea of Poppies, the colors appeal to me.
Hey. Post more!
I love books where the cover design is as attractive as the content.
Thank you, great covers. I especially love the simplicity of some of these covers.
I agree those are good cover’s ..
Wonderful Thanks for sharing! I love it when publishers reprint classics with beautiful book covers and i like the bodies one
D: okay, I admit, most of them are pretty creative and clever, but NOT beautiful. Not for me anyway.
hello there!.. A good web design certainly make a good product looks even better and stunning!
great compilation!
And I found this one inspiring too
http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Monsters-Novel-Chuck-Palahniuk/dp/0393319296
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These are some very good book cover designs!