A Cover Credit Conundrum
And Other Things Worth Sharing this Week
I don’t have any capital W writing in the can, so I’m stealing Austin Kleon’s format this week. Here are ten things I thought were worth sharing.
Substack tells me this one is too long for email. Click here to read this in your browser.
The Hours
I bought this combined edition of The Hours by Michael Cunningham / Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf this week from Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor.1 Isn’t it gorgeous? The cover was designed by Delcan and Co.
From the publisher:
In The Hours, the acclaimed author Michael Cunningham draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf and the story of her novel, Mrs. Dalloway, to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair. In this edition, Cunningham brings his own Pulitzer Prize–winning novel together with Woolf’s masterpiece, which has long been hailed as a groundbreaking work of literary fiction and one of the finest novels written in English.
The two novels, published side by side with a new introduction by Cunningham, display the extent of their affinity, and each illuminates new facets of the other in this joint volume. In his introduction, Cunningham re-creates the wonderment of his first encounter with Mrs. Dalloway at fifteen—as he writes, “I was lost. I was gone. I never recovered.” With this edition, Cunningham allows us to disappear into the world of Woolf and into his own brilliant mind.
Choosing a Cover Font
Courtesy of Daniel Benneworth-Gray and his great newsletter Meanwhile, here’s Jon Klassen on choosing a cover font for picture books.
Cover Notes
Over on Substack Notes, Isabella Reiter has been sharing collections of covers by specific designers. Give her a follow to learn who designed your favorite books!
The Ray Bradbury and Dua Lipa Blunt Rotation
Last weekend, I saw Penny and Sparrow in concert at The Ark. Penny and Sparrow might be my favorite musical act. They are definitely my favorite musical act to see live. They play beautiful music and have funny banter—including a joke about Ray Bradbury and Dua Lipa being the ideal blunt rotation. Context: their song, Bishop, references a Bradbury interview.
The duo reads a lot, and there are more than a few references to books in their songs.
Terrestrial Poems Cover Reveal
j j b r i n s k i shared the cover for Terrestrial Poems, a forthcoming book of regional nature poetry from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The lovely cover was designed by Phil Britton, a letterpress printer from Marquette, Michigan. Kickstarter comes at the end of April, so follow Brinksi if you’re interested in this book.
Making Type: James Edmondson of OH no Type Co.
Courtesy of the The Weekly Typographic newsletter: An interview with James Edmondson, the man and type designer behind OH no Type Co.
New Business Cards
I made new business cards. I’m quite fond of them (for now)! They were printed by the good folks at Print-Tech in Saline, Michigan.
A Cover Credit Conundrum
I recently started reading Theo of Golden with my mom for our two-person book club we started a few years ago when she underwent chemotherapy treatment. As I usually do, I checked the back cover to see who designed the book’s cover. The credit read “cover design by 99Designs” and “cover illustrations by the author and Garry Pound.”
If you aren’t familiar, 99Designs is a graphic design platform that connects freelancers and clients. It began as a design contest site but has since expanded its offerings to include freelancer matchmaking as well as their own “Pro Studio” (and is now owned by Vistaprint).
I found it strange that a book from a Big 5 imprint would credit an entire design platform with the cover design, so I did a little digging. After some Googling, I learned that Theo of Golden was originally a self-published book.2 Additionally, I found a cover reveal video by the author that shows what is essentially the same cover as the Atria Books version—but not quite.
Though I am still not entirely sure why an individual designer hasn’t been credited, what I gather from this is that the original, self-published version of the book—which you can still find on Amazon, I think—used a cover designed by someone hired through 99Designs. Simon & Schuster, wanting to capitalize on the success of the self-published book, decided to keep the cover basically the same, with a few tweaks, to optimize recognition. Maybe crediting 99Designs was the bare minimum on their part to credit someone they didn’t hire for a cover that they made changes to. Maybe the cover was provided by 99Designs Pro Studio, making this credit is the most accurate. Maybe this is what the author requested. Maybe the designer didn’t want credit.
If I was curious enough, I might buy the 2023 self-published version and see who that cover credits, but I must admit, my curiosity ends at the prospect of spending money.
Best Book Covers of March
According to Literary Hub, here are the best book covers that appeared in March.
Some good ones in there, but I find there is a lack of variety in the aesthetic taste on this list. I like this one the best:
Thanks for Reading!
Thank you for reading! I mean it.
If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.
Until next time,
—Nathaniel
Thanks, Rich!
I’m not terribly surprised to learn this, but that’s a topic for another day.
Man, thanks for the shoutout!
I own the 2023 self-published version and can solve the mystery for you. It doesn’t say. 😏
Also, stoked for @jjbrinski’s new book! Loving that design.