It’s time to start judging books by their covers

It’s a life-lesson that starts really early, and we can’t hardly disagree: it’s important to get to know the contents of something (a book, a person’s personality, an experience) rather than basing our opinions solely on what we see on the outside. But if we strip away the metaphor, there’s actually something interesting left over: judging an actual book by its actual cover.

Serious work goes into designing book covers so that readers are tempted to pull them off the shelves. What colors should be on the cover? Bright and cheerful? Serious and moody? What about the art? Will there be an illustration? A photograph? A collage of images? How about the font? What does a serifed font convey that a san serif font doesn’t?

Teaching students about the art and analysis of book cover design should be part of your repertoire (or at least an option on days where you need sub plans, filler lessons, extra credit, etc.), and we’ve collected 15 resources to help you get started.

VIDEOS:

• The Best (Recent) Book Covers Including MINE! | VlogBrothers on YouTube | 3:59
  Hank Green talks about some of his favorite book covers and what it is about them that both connects to the genre they represent and how the art is used to draw in a potential reader.

• How a Book Gets Designed | VlogBrothers on YouTube | 3:43
  In this video, John Green talks about how his book covers get designed, especially his most recent book The Anthropocene Reviewed.

• Inside Random House: “The Art of Cover Design” | Penguin Random House on YouTube | 4:45
  Several graphic designers were interviewed for this video, and they all talk about the experience of designing covers for books they were assigned. The strength of this video is that different iterations of the covers are shown while the designers talk about what made those iterations work or not work. In each case, the final design is shown and discussed in terms of what made it work best.

• The Hilarious Art of Book Design | Chip Kidd | TED Talk on YouTube | 17:16
  Chip Kidd is a well-known and well-respected graphic designer. He talks about different book covers he designed and the processes some of them went through before they hit a final draft. Note: this talk was designed for an adult audience, and you should preview this video before showing it to students. The discussion of Augusten Borroughs at 9:26 running through the end of the video is pretty clean.

• BATMAN Comic Book Covers with Chip Kidd! | Domestika English on YouTube | 3:50
  Chip Kidd discusses three of his favorite Batman comic book covers, and speaks to how the artistic design on the outside makes suggestions about the tone of the comic book as a whole.

• The Art of Book Cover Design | Penguin Random House UK on YouTube | 2:35
  This video contrasts nicely with John Green’s videos. Where Green’s experience was very one-on-one and personal, this video shows how a whole team of people work together to brainstorm, create, review, and finalize book covers.

• A Book Cover Analysis: A Fun Back-to-School Reading Task | ELA Brave and True | Marilyn Yung | August 2020
  Yung’s essay takes readers through her process of teaching students about book covers. She includes the question/task she assigned students and three examples she showed her students: When the Astors Owned New York, Angela’s Ashes, and The Catcher in the Rye.

ARTICLES

• 5 Things Every Author Needs to Understand about Book Cover Design | Huffpost.com | Brooke Warner
  If you aren’t going to watch “The Hilarious Art of Book Design,” this article is a good replacement. Warner covers several of the main points Kidd makes, even referencing ideas Kidd presented in his TED Talk.

• Book Cover Confidential: A Roundtable with Designers | The Walrus | KC Hoard
  In this article, Hoard interviews three book designers from different businesses about the process, challenge, and art of book cover design.

• Anatomy of a book cover | 99 Designs | Karla Lant
  Lant outlines the different components of book covers with examples and commentary on why they matter.

LESSON PLANS

• Judging a Book by its Cover: The Art and Imagery of The Great Gatsby | Read Write Think | Carol Hurt
  Hurt’s lesson draws on an article about the painting that serves as the backdrop of the cover, an essay about the artist commissioned to create that painting, and color psychology. It comes with worksheets and very clear instructions for teaching the lesson.

• Visual Analysis to Introduce The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks | Teachers Pay Teachers | Suzy’s Resources | FREE Resource
  This free resource is really strong and definitely adaptable to fit other novels. Suzy’s Resources has structured the questions well, calling on students higher-level thinking skills as they’re asked to consider a range of information.

• English 105 Online Curriculum Module: Judging a Book by Its Cover | University of North Carolina | E. Kader, C. Kennedy, L. Shand, A. Werlinich
  This website has everything a teacher needs to teach students about book covers, from typography to paper quality. It’s more than a middle- or high-school teacher will need, so we recommend giving it an overview and checking out the worksheets they’ve posted.

• Design a Book Cover | Creative Educator | Grades 4-10
  This lesson plan includes instructional prompts, standards, the assignment, and a rubric.

• Book Cover Redesign | Mrs. Yelenick’s Classroom
  In this assignment, students re-design a text they are familiar with. It uses the Penguin Random House video “The Art of Cover Design” (linked above), and comes with a rubric.