I’ll bet there are plenty of people out there these days who see book covers as an anachronism ... like, say, album covers or magazine covers. I’m not one of them. I try not to let book covers be determinative in deciding what to purchase (though, contrary to the adage “you can’t judge a book by its cover,” covers are designed to convey important information to potential readers). But, even though I’m a total dunce when it comes to design (just ask others on the Independent’s team who went through our recent website redesign process), I love a well designed book cover.

That’s why I loved learning, through our friends at Shelf Awareness, about Design Observer’s 50 Books/50 Covers contest, where they pick the best book covers, and books, from a design perspective. Go ahead and click the link to check out the covers. If that’s not enough for you, you can also check out all the nominees, last year’s winners and nominees, and a whole archive of previous years. There’s also an entire website devoted to all aspects of book and book cover design. 

It’s funny how the best covers are often simple. I don’t know why I like the cover of The Flame Alphabet (above) so much, but I do. Likewise Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings. The cover of Ian McEwan’s Solar is ridiculously simple yet refuses to leave my mind years after reading the book.

What do you think - can we send book covers the way of the dodo bird? Or should we keep them around?