Book covers

 "The first impression matters"

After watching the video by Chip Kidd and then trying to choose and analyze three book covers from the book cover archive  I realized how important is the image you get from a book just by its cover. Either if you read a book by recommendation, as a task or by pleasure, the first impression of it comes by the way it is presented.- its cover. It is the impression you will keep of the book while you are reading it and after it. 

As said by Chip Kidd, book covers matters the author, the publisher and the reader. So it has an impact in the way it is sold, the way it is read and the way it represents the authors vision of it.

The first book I chose is the biography of Mandela. For me this cover talks of a serious book, where they show Mandela just as he is. He does not need any logos, phrases, flags... to represent him, he is just Mandela. I would say by this cover that it is not a book of a polical party or tendency, but it is the book of a man who promote freedom. The colors of the flag of South African are presented just tiny in a corner of the cover. For me it reinforces that it is a book of a international man, a Nobel Priced man. 

Truth, hard work

The second cover that called my attention "About a Mountain" and what resonated to me is that there is no mountain in the cover but the words in a descendant line. As Chip Kidd says in his video, words and images together can talk to much about something , so here we can see only words so  "mountain" without the picture of it, can refer the reader to a "huge amount" of something, to  a pile. For me the simply ausence of the picture refers to some "mystery" and maybe even to a  novel involving lawyers, police men...

Legal conflict?

  

Mystery, suspense 

A mystery novel, suspense, highly hidden secrets.... that is what I would expect to read in this third book that I chose. Just by the blurry presence of the man in the cover and it small proportion with the letter and the size of the cover itself I can feel it is a book of mystery, suspense and even sadness. 
I would love to read or know the authors thoughts about their books. Does the covers really represent what they want to transmit to the reader? 
I can perceive the making of a book cover as a huge responsibility from the publisher and author to the audience. I can compare it to the movie making of a book, it needs to respect the content of the book and at the same time it needs to be attractive, balanced...


http://bookcoverarchive.com/book/mandela

http://bookcoverarchive.com/book/about_a_mountain

http://bookcoverarchive.com/book/presence_stories