Oh, how I love me a typographic cover. Give me serifs, sans serifs, condensed characters, and boldfaces. Give me balance and a typeface with personality. Give me something other than a title slapped on in Neue Helvetica and I’ll give your cover another glance.
And while you’re at it, make me swoon with your swash.
I discovered the cover art for Large Mammals, Stick Insects & Other Social Misfits earlier this month via Jacket Knack’s “Touch of Irish” post. The YA novel revolves around the life of 15-year-old Aimée that sounds just as quirky as this cover looks. The cover is designed by Fidelma Slattery (ahem, can we say awesome name?) better known as Someday. Social Misfits’ face is s a coupling of whimsical type and what I can only assume to be a sprinkling of clues that are tidbits of Aimée’s story. The combination of colors, movement, character and an interesting title on this artwork was enough to make me want to find out more about the book (and its publisher, Irish indie Little Island).
Oh, and the cupcake is a nice little bonus, too. Never mind that at the opposite end of that cupcake is a weight scale. I’ll just pretend I didn’t make that connection.
You are such a good cover analyzer! I would have never, ever noticed the cupcake led to a scale, lol.
And this book isn’t on Goodreads. I checked out the site you provided…is it not available in the US? Or can I only buy it on their site? Nevermind, I found it on TBD.
It really was mean of me to post about a book you can’t go out and purchase immediately, wasn’t it.
I love this cover too, and you’ve really got me thinking about the power of font. Sometimes, an interesting font treatment can be the entire focus of the cover, putting much less pressure on the other cover elements to “perform.” As you say, makes one wonder why a cover designer would ever default to a boring font.
It’s the worst when the title’s type feels like an afterthought. Especially when it’s completely overpowered by another element. Throws the whole cover art off-balance.
the cover looks so good! I’ll have to look for this book next time I’m at the library.
I love the font! I also agree with Jacinda. I wouldn’t have noticed that the cupcake led to a scale unless you had said something. Haha I would have just focused on the cupcake.
So totally unlike me (and my single-minded sweet tooth), I know.
That is just beautiful, I love the colour and the font and now I really want to read this book!
Great cover. And I’m glad I could find the book listed on Amazon.
Sorry about that! I tend to forget that sometimes people actually want to BUY these books that have lovely covers.