"When we look at a book, its cover tells us what to expect. A pink paperback featuring a smiling young woman is most likely a female-centric summer read, whereas a gun on a black background is probably a murder story. A few simple aesthetic rules narrow our options, make life easier and ensure none of us has to wander Waterstone's for hours, wailing in confusion. And yet the rules seem to be changing.
Having cottoned on to the fact that chick lit books sell like cupcakes, publishers are now adding chick lit-style covers to any book written by a woman whether it fits the genre definition or not...I hope publishers will soon realise that their tactic isn't working and could, in fact, backfire badly. If all book covers look the same, then none stand out. And if we know that how a book looks is no indication of its content, we might just become so dispirited that we bypass the bookstore and rent a DVD instead."
'If all book covers look the same, then none stand out.'
This has definitely given me the motivation to really explore the typography that I love and allow my designs to still fit into that genre but ensure they have that extra edge to them so that people's eyes go to them on the shelf and want to choose Catherine Alliott's books over all the rest with their predictable covers.
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