Who Designed It? ‘Colored Television’ by Danzy Senna
Designer: Lauren Peters-Collaer
When I go to bookstores, I am obsessed with looking at books’ back flap to see who designed the jacket.
If I particularly like it, I look them up. I usually follow them on Instagram. I add them to my little mental Rolodex of designers whom I am jealous of. They become famous to me like the world’s most niche celebrities. Yes, I am very normal.
Now, I subject you share my obsession with you. Lucky you!
Here is a designer I think you should know: Lauren Peters Collaer.
The Book
Title: Colored Television by Danzy Senna
Cover Designer: Lauren Peters-Collaer
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Publication Date: July 30, 2024
Jane has high hopes that her life is about to turn around. After a long, precarious stretch bouncing among sketchy rentals and sublets, she and her family are living in luxury for a year, house-sitting in the hills above Los Angeles. The gig magically coincides with Jane’s sabbatical, giving her the time and space she needs to finish her second novel—a centuries-spanning epic her artist husband, Lenny, dubs her “mulatto War and Peace.” Finally, some semblance of stability and success seems to be within her grasp.
But things don’t work out quite as hoped. Desperate for a plan B, like countless writers before her Jane turns her gaze to Hollywood. When she finagles a meeting with Hampton Ford, a hot producer with a major development deal at a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a “real writer,” and together they begin to develop “the Jackie Robinson of biracial comedies.” Things finally seem to be going right for Jane—until they go terribly wrong.
Funny, piercing, and page turning, Colored Television is Senna’s most on-the-pulse, ambitious, and rewarding novel yet.
The Designer
Lauren Peters-Collaer is a multidisciplinary graphic designer currently working as an associate art director at Riverhead Books.
Links:
Other Covers
Here are some other excellent book covers from Lauren Peters-Collaer.
Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (Riverhead, 2023)
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood (Riverhead, 2022)
Feast Your Eyes by Myla Goldberg (Scribner, 2020)
After the Sun by Jonas Eika (Riverhead, 2022)
The Library Book by Susan Orlean (Simon & Schuster, 2019)
Thrust by Lidia Yuknavitch (Riverhead, 2023)
Audition by Katie Kitamura (Riverhead, 2025)
The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story by Olga Tokarczuk (Riverhead, 2024)
White on White by Aysegul Savas (Riverhead, 2021)
Other Work
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this look at the work of Lauren Peters-Collaer, one of my favorite working book cover designers.
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That After the Sun cover is a piece of glitch art unto itself. Formally and compositionally all correct but hurts to look at!
Great design. great book