Rick Poynor: How to Cover an Impossible Book

Link: http://observersroom.designobserver.com/rickpoynor/post/how-to-cover-an-impossible-book/31498/

(Top row, left to right: Viktor Koen, cover design for Penguin's U.S. edition of the book, 2003; Peter Chmela, Slovakia, competition entry; Karoly Kele, Hungary, competition entry. Bottom row, left to right: Dean Owen, U.K., competition entry; Jamie Keenan, U.K., commissioned by John Bertram; David Gee, Canada, commissioned by John Bertram.)

Rick Poynor's latest post on Design Observer is about one of the cover design competitions organized by John Bertram, of Venus febriculosa. Poynor writes:

There is no right or final answer with a book cover. (...) Over time a much-reprinted novel or short story collection will generate scores of different cover designs around the world. While the visual interpretation of any book's contents can be taxing, with some books the stakes are especially high."

He then mentions Tadeusz Borowski's This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen as being that kind of publication. This was the book Bertram chose for his competition in May 2010. Poynor analyzes a few of the entries, plus other covers that Bertram commissioned afterwards.