For this, our last Wednesday Cover Story for 2011, I thought I would leave you with the discovery of another website-cum-blog that devotes, not just Wednesday’s, but Any Day to the subject that is The Book Cover.  And so, to ensure that over the festive holidays you still get your fill of cover stories, I present to you: Fixabook.

It’s really a delightful smorgasbord of book cover topics for anyone that loves design or just books in general, and is a bit of an eye-opener for those who have never been conscious of certain trends or really given much thought to “the art of the book cover”. The site is nicely separated into various sections including Blurbs, Covers, Spines (the importance of which is so often underestimated) and a common favourite, Copycat covers.

But in this latter section, rather than flag up books that have used the exact same image on the cover, it highlights less obvious copycat themes – where the books may have used different images but have followed the same tricks and trends and still mirror eachother in more subtle ways. We could add some of our titles to their list of Copycat trends: Girls’ Legs (see The Musician’s Daughter) and Headless Women (see Elizabeth, Captive Princess) – but I particularly love their collage of crime books following the rule of The Vanishing Point. I hadn’t picked up on this but seen all together the trend is so blatantly clear! (And yes, I think we’ve fallen for it too with Second Shot...)

Enjoy your book cover fix!

Chiara Priorelli, Publicity & Online Marketing Manager