Judging a book by its cover (with Liz)

Liz North is delightful in the same way that spotting a double rainbow or a school of frolicking dolphins is delightful. She is also an incredibly stylish magazine Art Director who has designed dozens and dozens of beautiful, big selling covers for all kinds of titles. I think she's one of the most talented people in her field and I would know (and be completely biased) because we worked together for such a long time. Visually Liz and I agree on most things (except how much she looks like January Jones) and these are her four favourite covers of Vladimir Nabokov's cult classic, Lolita.

"For a book that has had almost as many cover designs as it has pages, graphically this 1973 UK edition of Lolita has to be one of my favourite incantations." 

"I confess to having a higher than your average straight girl love of images of women licking icy poles so I could potentially be quite biased, however there is something very pleasing about the beautiful curves of the type and the tonal colours used. I feel that the type on its own – sans ice cream licking temptress - would have had nice impact as well."

"Honourable mentions for Lolita cover design also go to this 1977 edition and 2 editions from 2005."

Thanks Liz!

There's a great blog exclusively about book cover design here  and you might also like to check out this lovely book of Penguin cover design.