Judge a Book By it's Cover

[LaKeshia, The Librarian]

Is there a book you read just because it had a engagingly designed cover? Share the book and tell us why it caught your eye.

I am a big sucker for cover design as a graphic designer. :P

[Laszlo]

We do not just walk down a bookstore/library aisle, not to be rude, and simply turn and pick out a book just by chance. The book has to catch our eye, make us say "Hmm, I wonder what that book is about?" Another important thing in the advertisement of a book may also have something to do with the title. Lets say you see a book with the title "A Living Book". That way, it gets you asking questions; Really? How? These questions keep urging at you until you have can't control yourself and you just have to pick it up. Another person on Goodreads raised a good point about books catching your eye: a lot of books have the author's name bigger than the actual title of the book. He also said that, if you see a Stephen King book, you will probably pick it up because it says "Stephen King" and not because the book looks good. This kind of goes to show how primitive we can be sometimes.

[Laszlo]

So, basically, we are all big suckers for graphic design.

[LaKeshia, The Librarian]

We don't always pick books with engaging design. There are books that we came to love through recommendations, required reading, and so forth. Jane Eyre didn't have the most engaging cover to me but I absolutely loved it, as well as many others novels. There are covers of books I own that I absolutely cringe at the design work, but I love the story. On the opposite spectrum, there are books I have purchased with beautiful cover design that were basically....absolute crap that should have been burned, not published. However, I bought it for the design and was disappointed by what it contained. Hence the source of the question and why I said I was a sucker for design. I have been suckered in to buying some pretty terrible books. There are many reasons we all buy books and I was merely inquiring on how much a design personally influences each one of us. :)

[LaKeshia, The Librarian]

Your choices that you have shared are equally interesting and somewhat intriguing in design work.

[Laszlo]

Hmm... the designers must know we will probably not like the book, so they put engaging covers.

[Laszlo]

Keshia wrote: "Your choices that you have shared are equally interesting and somewhat intriguing in design work."

Thank you.

[LaKeshia, The Librarian]

Laszlo wrote: "Hmm... the designers must know we will probably not like the book, so they put engaging covers."

Haha. That could be the case. Some think their books are engaging and well-written... Some, are wrong.

[Laszlo]

Yes, when the designer of the book can not witness the complete ignorance and stupidity of the book, I believe there is a problem. I believe this comes up the most often when the authors are the designers.

[LaKeshia, The Librarian]

I can agree with that. That is also why you see brilliantly written books with atrocious cover art; that or merely a beginning artist did not have the money to do something more professional. It is sad that many have ignored a wonderful book because of bad design. There are so many books out there and a limited time to read them. We judge so that we can accomplish our reading goals with the best choices sometimes missing out.

[Laszlo]

I have a suggestion for a thread: Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover. There you can post about good books with bad covers and good covers with bad books. Recommend and warn.

[Laszlo]

Also, do you mind if I use the Coffee House Convo idea for a group I am in which is pretty similar to this one?

[LaKeshia, The Librarian]

No problem. You're free to use it. If it encourages people to communicate positively, I am for it. And I will make a sub-thread utilizing that idea. That was the basis of this post and it would be nice to see the responses.

[Laszlo]

Thank you!