About The Author

Vitaly Friedman loves beautiful content and doesn’t like to give in easily. When he is not writing or speaking at a conference, he’s most probably running … More about Vitaly

Excellent Book Covers and Paperbacks

Quick Summary

Book covers are hard to design and nice to look at. An effective book cover manages to catch human’s eye and convey the idea behind the book on one single page. However, it’s getting even harder: to make a book really hard to forget, designers need to design the cover in a unique, creative and striking way. That’s not that different from Web where it’s important to build a sound information architecture upon a rather restricted design layout.

Table of Contents
Membership counter

Members support Smashing

Wonderful, friendly people who keep this lil' site alive — and get smarter every day.

Are you smashing, too? →

Book covers are hard to design and nice to look at. An effective book cover manages to catch human’s eye and convey the idea behind the book on one single page. However, it’s getting even harder: to make a book really hard to forget, designers need to design the cover in a unique, creative and striking way. That’s not that different from Web where it’s important to build a sound information architecture upon a rather restricted design layout.

The main idea of this post is to provide you with some creative, expressive and appealing book covers. You won’t like all of them, but you’ll definitely find some designs which are worth pondering upon.

Further Reading on SmashingMag:

Please keep in mind: there are thousands of excellent book covers; we’ve selected only few ones which are excellent in our humble opinion. Although this selection is definitely subjective, we’ve tried to do our best to find interesting designs which make the book cover hard to forget. If you have further suggestions please comment on this post. All covers posted are the copyright of their respective holders.

Book Covers

A Clockwork Orange Meet Alex. Simple, but so memorable. Designed by David Pelham.

Book Covers - Book Covers

Brave New World Designed by Gregg Kulick.

Book Covers - Book Covers

A Perfect Mess

Book Covers - A Perfect Mess

Christopher Moore, “The Dirty Job”, 1007

Book Covers - Christopher Moore, Un lavoro sporco, 10/07

Disorders of Memory and Learning Effective and creative. 1968. Cover Design by Martin Bassett.

Book Covers - the-end-of-inequality.jpg (image)

Jordan Crane’s Book Covers Crane’s illustrations are beautiful and memorable. That’s what makes a good book cover.

Book Covers - the-end-of-inequality.jpg (image)

Book Covers - Book Covers

Paul Rand’s Book Covers Paul Rand: one of the most influential modern graphic designers. Simple and effective.

Book Covers - the-end-of-inequality.jpg (image)

Book Covers - the-end-of-inequality.jpg (image)

The End Of Inequality Cover design by Peter Stone.

Book Covers - Judge a book.....

1984

Book Covers - FFFFOUND!

Incomplete Manifesto Just a sketch. This book doesn’t exist.

Book Covers - a5

Soviet Science Fiction book cover

Book Covers - Soviet Science Fiction book cover

Penguin Book Covers

Book Covers - FFFFOUND!

St. Cyborg’s

Book Covers - St. Cyborg's

A Penguin Special - A Suitable Case for Treatment

Book Covers - A Penguin Special - A Suitable Case for Treatment

“The book of the Spirits”

Book Covers -

Gas Book 08: Blue Source

Book Covers - Gas Book 08: Blue Source

The Language of Graphics

Book Covers - The Language of Graphics

1964 Sex and Society - Alex Comfort

Book Covers - things magazine

1970 War Gaming - Andrew Wilson

Book Covers - things magazine

5ПЯТИЛЕТКА A Soviet book cover from 1930.

Book Covers - 5ПЯТИЛЕТКА (1930)

John Gall’s Book Covers Gall’s covers always take a look at the book content from a quite unusual perspective. Masterpieces.

Book Covers - Book Covers

Book Covers - Book Covers

Book Covers - Book Covers

We Can Build You

Book Covers - We Can Build You

Magical Thinking The book cover is attractive and conveys the idea of the book.

Book Covers - Good Is Dead. The Learners in finer bookstores everywhere.

Twenty Questions

Book Covers - Good Is Dead. The Learners in finer bookstores everywhere.

1982 Know Your Own Personality.

Book Covers - things magazine

ВЧЕРА И СЕГОДНЯ (1935)

Book Covers - ВУЕРА СЕГОДНЯ (1935)

Alvin Lustig’s Book Covers

Book Covers - Alvin Lustig, Modern American Design Pioneer - Books and Periodicals - New Directions

Suiza Constructiva

Book Covers - Suiza Constructiva

“The Art of a Book” Interesting conceptual solution.

Book Covers

“The Creative Process”

Book Covers -

Understanding Media Interesting use of symbols.

Book Covers - Favourite Book Covers 088

Exile and the Kingdom Eye-catching. Designed by Helen Yentus.

Book Covers - Book Covers

House of Meetings Designer: Peter Mendelsund.

Book Covers - Book Covers

Cigarette Century

Book Covers - The Book Design Review

Dutch paperback book cover design

Book Covers - Dutch paperback book cover design

Hans Kleefeld book cover design

Book Covers - FFFFOUND!

Livre perdu1 / Lost book 1

Book Covers - Livre perdu1 / Lost book 1

Toby Litt

Book Covers - blogphoto6.html

Grabink Book Covers Decoration Book bindings by gner-artists Chris Enock and David Enock.

Book Covers - The Arts Décoratifs Collection/Grabink

Book Covers - The Arts Décoratifs Collection/Grabink

Minimalism

The Music of Chance

Book Covers - Book Cover: The Music of Chance

One Red Paperclip

Book Covers - The Book Design Review

Supercapitalism

Book Covers - Book Covers

Worst Years Of Your Life

Book Covers - Book Covers

Typography

Expo 58, book cover

Book Covers - Expo 58, book cover

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Book Covers - The Illustrated Novel

Last Days Of Publishing

Book Covers - Book Covers

The Trouble With Physics

Book Covers - The Book Design Review

Small Crimes in an Age of Abundance

Book Covers - Book Covers

The Disappearing Liberal Intellectual

Book Covers - Book Covers

Emil Ruder, “Typographie”

Book Covers - Emil Ruder's Typographie

Nikelleo Rellana’s work

Book Covers

House of Leaves Book Cover Designed by Joe Paul.

Book Covers - House of Leaves Book Cover

Change the Way You See Everything: Through Asset-Based Thinking

Book Covers - Amazon Online Reader : Change the Way You See Everything: Through Asset-Based Thinking

Kidney For Sale By Owner Designed by David Drummond.

Book Covers - Kidney For Sale By Owner

Ace of Spades: A Memoir

Book Covers - AIGA Design Archives

About Face: Reviving the Rules of Typography

Book Covers - About Face: Reviving the Rules of Typography

The Mayor’s Tongue

Book Covers - The Book Design Review

All the Sad Young Literary Men

Book Covers - The Book Design Review

swissmiss: Books

Book Covers - swissmiss: Books

Sources and Resources