MQUP Book Design Staff Picks

50 Books | 50 Covers is the oldest book design competition in the US. According to the Guardian, winning titles of this year’s competition will be featured in a book and even displayed in a touring exhibition to showcase the most innovative book and cover designs of 2015. Which makes one think: of course we judge books by their covers. And why wouldn’t we?

Here are some (but certainly not all) staff-selected MQUP favourites. Hats off to our book designers and Production team!

Paloma Friedman, Publishing Administrator: “I am a big fan of The Canadian Oral History Reader. Not only is the book’s subject matter fascinating, the taut, multi-coloured threads woven around nails outlining Canada’s perimeter make for an attention-grabbing cover.”

Amy Hemond, Publicity Assistant: “Shelley Wright’s Our Ice is Vanishing. That image of the lonely polar bear against the stark dry landscape gives the words that accompany it so much more power. Most people associate polar bears with icy tundra landscapes, so that distinct contrast in backdrop is shocking.”

Andrew Pinchefsky, Production Coordinator: “Hit the Road, Jack by Gordon Slethaug and Stacilee Ford. Simple but striking, having the words in yellow on the front cover form a single line on a black background, was a great idea by David Drummond.”

Jack Hannan, Sales Manager: “Land, Power, and Economics by John Clarke, is a very beautiful paperback book. The cover is great, and the size and shape is great. This is a very nice object!”

Mark Abley, Acquisition Editor: “I had wondered what image could possibly convey the mixture of science and poetry that Jeffery Donaldson explores in his superb book, Missing Link. David Drummond came through with a spectacular design that serves in its own right as a metaphor for and of evolution.”

It’s also a favourite for Production Manager Elena Goranescu: “I think David is at his best when he designs covers for difficult concepts.”

Filomena Falocco, Direct Mail & Exhibits Coordinator, for On Architecture: “Love the clean lines of the typography, the fresh look of the cover. To me, it’s just beautiful. The colours are amazing.”

For Editor in Chief Jonathan Crago, The Politics of the Pantry cover is a “clean, simple, visual that gets right at the idea of the source of food and the stakes we have in its transformation before it makes it into our mouths.”

Another favourite for Jonathan: Techniciens de l’organisation sociale. “This cover was a real challenge, even for a skilled designer David: it’s hard to think of how to visually represent the transition in the administration of public services in Montreal – from church-run charities to the state – that is put under the microscope in this book. Often one has to steer away from a direct portrayal of the subject matter of the book into something more allusive or indirect, but we ended up with such a clever summoning of the distinct ideas of the church and bureaucracy that fits this book perfectly. I was over the moon when I first saw this sketch. Even the adding machine used in the photo looks like it was in its prime smack dab in the mid-twentieth century time period the author is writing about!”

Ryan Van Huijstee, Managing Editor, gives his top 3 picks. Starting with Michael Saenger’s Interlinguicity, Internationality, and Shakespeare: “Who’s your Dada? David Drummond, of course. With a nod to Marcel Duchamp’s mustachioed Mona Lisa, this cover is as mischievous as Puck and conveys Shakespeare’s wordplay as easily as it suggests the inevitable overlap of different languages in literature.”

*Recently selected for the 2015 AAUP Book, Jacket & Journal Design Show: Jackets & Covers Category.

2) The American Empire and the Fourth World: “I saw this cover long before I ever worked for MQUP and it had me seeing stars with its simple, clever, and polemical replacement. It simultaneously makes me want to run away from its invading helicopters and raise it up on a sign at protests.”

3) Blindfold: “Laments about print being dead (reports of which are greatly exaggerated) often rely on their authors’ loving descriptions about the feel and smell of books that generally make my eyes roll. But this is a cover you need to feel, rather than see – the title is embossed and the same colour as the blindfold from which the textured type emerges. It is a brilliant way of adding another layer of significance to the work of a visually impaired poet who engages with the theme of blindness.”

What covers stand out on your bookshelves? What do you think makes for great, attention-grabbing book design?