Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Book Cover Trends I Like/Dislike

A meme from the Broke and the Bookish.

Today’s topic: Ten Book Cover Trends (or just elements of covers) I Like/Dislike {can stick to one or the other or both!}

Like

1. Silhouettes – It is an art style I always like. Clean lines and simplicity. It communicates much more with very little.

2. Typography – I will admit that just some fancy writing will completely draw me to a book.

3. Coordination – When a series or author’s books all coordinate. There is a design theme or even just when the spines coordinate it makes me terribly terribly happy.

4. Details – When there is a cover so detailed and specific to the story that you find yourself flipping back and forth as you learn about the person or thing on the cover.

5. Iconic Items – The weapon of the protagonist, symbols that are relevant, etc.

Dislike

1. Girl in Pretty Dress – Sometimes they can be neat with cool effects and some really awesome dresses but I rarely feel like they tell me anything about the book.

2. Super Closeup of Face – Yes, that model you picked is very attractive but they look nothing like any of the characters and tell me nothing about the book.

3. Who Is That? – When the person on the cover bears no resemblance to anyone in the book. I’m less finicky about white washing because to me descriptions are very fluid and brown skin can be any shade of brown, though there are some more blatant cases. I’m more irked when the cover is a blonde woman and there is not a single blonde in the book.

4. Movie Versions – I feel like they could be done in an interesting way, altering an image from the film just as you would a stock photograph. However they just slap on a shot and a movie sticker.

5. The 90s – The art was cartoony. The colors were garish. The fonts were bizarre. The clothes were so hilarious, everything was tinted by the era.

I think a broader trend is that I prefer illustrated to photos, but that is more like two overlapping spectra. While the overall is true there are still good photos that I prefer to bad illustrated.