One was an article from British news site The Guardian entitled Jackets Required: Why Cover Art Matters. In the article, Emma Barnes, co-founder and managing director of Snowbooks talked about using cover art to grab a reader's attention:
"Blurbs and quotes and endorsements all require a bit of scrutiny; a cover is something you can see from 15 ft. away, for half a second, and think "ahhh, techno-thriller". Assuming you're wearing your specs."
Ms. Barnes went on to contradict my thought that every cover should be unique (one of many reasons why she runs a publishing company and I don't).
"When we started doing cover design we were tempted to make every book look unique. Otherwise we'd be plagiarising - and then might'nt readers think we were trying to trick them?...Each cover design has to be individual enough that readers don't pick it up (and subsequently drop it) thinking it's something else. But we need it to be reminiscent of all the things it's like so that its potential readership can pick it out of a line-up."
Interesting article - I suggest you read it in it's entirety.
On the flip side, I found this Trashionista post that makes me think some cover designers may find "unique" unnecessary all together.
Trading Up by Candace Bushnell, Hyperion (US) hardback, 2003
Candy Girl by Diablo Cody, Penguin Books (Australia) paperback, 2006
Feet First by Leanne Banks, Mira (Australia) paperback, 2007
Granted, one of the books is a US cover and the other two are the Australian editions, and I'm sure there was no copyright infringement involved, (no law suits - I'm not accusing anyone of anything). I'm just saying - perhaps these are a little TOO reminiscent of each other.
Now that cover art trends have been brought to my attention again, I'm sure it will be a recurring topic here - at least until new thoughts get piled on top and I lose it again.
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