cover design

I listened to a short talk about book cover design a couple of days ago.

It went along the lines of "lead the reader into the book."

It implied that certain genres have certain motifs which repeatedly occur on the covers so that people know what they are buying into. Often the more successful ones will have a 'vanishing point' graphic on the cover with a silhouette of a person running towards it.

Above, I picked a few at random from a well-know bookseller, just to test the point.

Subliminally it is supposed to encourage a browsing person to dive into the book. I wonder if it is also to confuse the reader-to-be to select a book 'something along the lines of'?


I can remember the first cover for the Triangle, which went to a professional cover designer, and featured a single person moving towards the reader. It didn't get past the second edit, though, and we eventually settled on the orange cover, which could stand out well on (ahem) street banners and bus wraps.