Cover Your Book with Beautiful Garbage
When Ugly is a Good Thing in Book Cover Design
Hello, Dear Reader!
This is A Book Designer’s Notebook, a newsletter about books, design, and what I’m working on. I’m Nathaniel Roy. This email may be clipped in your inbox—click here to read it in your browser.
One of the many things I love—and hate—about book cover design is its situation at the intersection of art and commerce. Some books, and publishers in general, lean one way or the other on this continuum, but ultimately, the book jacket is a sales tool. A little poster selling tens of thousands of words.
So naturally, there are many beautiful books. But occasionally, wandering into a bookstore, you will find something ugly.
Sometimes good design is using ugly aesthetics in a clever way.
“Ugly” is a relative term. All qualitative words for aesthetic judgment are. Beauty standards for more than book covers vary between and inside of cultures. This, I hope, is obvious. So what then do I mean by ugly? It’s a broad, subjective brush, but I am using the term here to mean anything that is—seemingly—amateurish, garish, unpleasant, or otherwise counter to a popular, Western culture of aesthetics.
Great, we’ve defined ugly. Give this guy a medal. Why would anyone want it, by any definition, on a book cover?
The Goals of a Book Cover
Sometimes good design is using ugly aesthetics in a clever way.
Something “bad,” like a stick figure, scribbled text, or trash bags might be what best represents an idea. The book designer is tasked with making something that sells and represents, or interprets,1 the book. These are goals that can sometimes feel at odds with each other.
Does ugly sell? I don’t know for sure. It depends on the book and, dare I say, “brand” of both author and publisher. There will never be a James Patterson book with Comic Sans on the cover.2 But there are publishers—often literary, often independent—that regularly put strange things on their covers to success. I think that when a publisher trusts its designer, and its readers, ugly aesthetics cleverly deployed can help a book stand out in a sea of trendy, beautiful covers.
The Irony of Ugly
I think what draws me most to this topic is its irony. Using something ugly, garish, or somehow unpleasant to create something else that is in turn not ugly. Like a little magic trick. I appreciate the beautiful covers, but as a designer myself, what really gets me excited is a terrific idea.
I don’t think these covers are ugly. But they contain elements that, on their own or in another context, would be considered as such.
“Bad” Typography
If a person knows one thing about fonts, it is probably that Comic Sans is bad. Well, Ben Denzer is here to tell you that a typeface is as good as the way it is used.
A Guide for Murdered Children by Sarah Sparrow
This jacket was the inspiration for this newsletter. It’s one of my favorites of all time.
Here, Denzer uses the “ugly” thing and all of its cultural associations (have you ever been to a preschool classroom?) to underpin a shocking and upsetting title. A different “friendly” font wouldn’t have the same effect as Comic Sans, with all its baggage. The cheery pink, cursive handwriting, staples, and silver star stickers all bolster the smart dichotomy between image and title.
How to Ruin Everything by George Watsky
Denzer is a master of this brand of ugly–but–great book cover. On How to Ruin Everything, he uses amateurish, handwritten type that just scrunches and curves as it runs out of room near the edge. This might look familiar to any of my fellow spatially challenged readers who go straight to sharpie when creating a homemade sign. In any other context, this would be considered bad. But here, on the cover of an essay collection, it tells you much about George Watsky and his writing before ever reading a word. Again, the “ugly” typography interfaces beautifully with the title.
Scribbles and Bad Art
If there is a platonic ideal of “bad drawing,” it is the stick figure. But bad art does not always mean bad design.
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
I am not sure if adding an illustrated horse head makes a stick figure good art. Regardless, designer Peter Mendelsund uses this scribbled figure to great effect. The doodle and quickly scrawled text—in a good composition— communicate the “colloquial, polemic, and hyper realistic” energy of the text. Is this freaky horse man what is waiting for us at the end of the night?
You Will Love What You Have Killed by Kevin Lambert
This cover, designed by Zoe Norvell, takes scribbles even further. This is a dark book that contains child abuse and misfortune. Knowing this, the stick figures, scribbles, and Zodiac–like handwriting take on a new and uncomfortable context.
The Hole by José Revueltas
“Scribbles” is a popular sub-genre of the ugly book cover. The marketing copy describes this book, designed by John Gall, as “a verbal torrent, a prison inside a prison, and an ominous parable about how deformed and wretched institutions create even more deformed and wretched individuals.” This cover looks like a haunted child drew it. I’m not sure if the cover is responding to plot, or just the “vibes” of this novel, but I would trust John Gall to the ends of the book-covered earth.
The Giant Author Name
You know the sort. At the airport, with the author’s name taking up nearly half of the cover, these are the books in which the author’s name does more selling than the cover design. But sometimes, the giant name does the heavy lifting of an idea.
The Status Game by Will Stor
“Ugly” might be a stretch here. But I also don’t think anyone would call a John Grisham book cover beautiful. Here, Steve Leard uses the giant–author–name marketing convention to illustrate the book’s topic with irreverent humor.
Unsavory Images
Some things, in real life, are not nice to look at. But on a book cover …
Bariloche by Andrés Neuman
Garbage bags! No ugly explanation needed. If only you could smell this book cover designed by Alban Fischer. Bonus: Read about Fischer’s design process and see some outtakes for this cover on Spine Magazine’s website.
Raw Deal by Chloe Sorvino
This cover designed by Claire Sullivan might be more ugly for the vegetarians reading, but I will say that my mental image of molding raw beef into letters is not pleasant.
The Bullsh*t We’re Being Fed by Robert Floyd
For shits and giggles: Here’s an unused cover sketch (ignore the watermark remnants, please) by yours truly. Like this comp, I am willing to bet that this genre of cover most often lives in designer’s “killed” sections of their websites.
The Weird, Bold, and Garish
A category that is a catch-all for covers that somewhat defy categorization. Here there are clashing aesthetics, garish colors, and bold, weird design choices that seem like they shouldn’t work, but do.
Hot Stew by Fiona Mozley
This cover might be the epitome of what I am talking about. The browns of the background; the hot pink of the text in the foreground. The manic faces of both dog and goose. A sloppy, handwritten title with sprayed edges that make it look blurred. “Hot Stew,” indeed. From reading the synopsis, I have no idea why designer Tree Abraham made this the cover. Maybe it was a hot pink literary moment. Either way, I want to read and find out.3
Girls That Never Die by Safia Elhillo
This might be the loudest poetry cover I have ever seen. The scooter! The sunglasses! The cans! The yellow shelving! This cover, by Arsh Raziuddin, is garish in the best way, in a genre that is usually much softer.
Great Falls, MT by Reggie Watts
Did you think we were done with Ben Denzer? On the cover of this memoir, Denzer uses a bold color palette and places a giant Reggie Watts head in The Great Falls. To quote fellow book designer Jordan Wannemacher, “I feel like if I tried what he did, I would have gotten yelled at.”
Trading Futures by Filipe Maia
This is a mutated pig that looks like something out of Jeff Vandermeers’ Southern Reach Trilogy. The swine and the hypnotic, patterned background are bold, lively choices to represent a nonfiction critique—something that might otherwise be thought of as boring. Thanks to Jason Arias for suggesting this one.
This is where I will leave it for today. There are many more covers I could share, but this post is already bigger than your inbox likely allows. If you liked this, let me know and I will write a future edition.4
One interesting thing I noticed while working on this was how recent these covers are. Is that just recency bias of searching the internet in 2024? Or does that imply something about cover trends? I will conduct a very scientific study and let you know.
Another thing I found interesting is that with some of these covers, they clearly represent the book’s contents, even without having read the book. For others, the covers make me wonder how and why these covers translate the book. As a designer and reader, these are often the covers that most often make me want to pick up a book after saying “What the hell is going on here?”
What do you think, Dear Reader? Did you find these books “ugly”? Would you pick any of them up in a bookstore? Do you know any ugly–but–great book covers that I missed? Let me know with a comment.
Thank you for reading. I appreciate it.
Until next time,
Nathaniel
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My favorite metaphor for this is that cover design is an act of translation.
But a boy can dream.
Maybe this one was too ugly. The bookshop.org link above shows a new cover.
If not: too bad! I will still probably plan for another edition.
I liked pondering all these examples. Thanks for gathering them. Related to your third footnote, do sales relate to how often a book cover changes over time? Like a series of experiments? If it’s “too ugly,” they will commission a new cover to basically try again?
I'm working with an artist for my poetry chapbook...it’s a process and I'm incredibly lucky to have her before she gets snatched up my the gaming industry.
I want to share her mock ups vs mine with you!!