I often find myself buying wine by the label. The ratings, legs, bouquet mean nothing to me but put an eye catching label with clever design and I’m sold. It’s the same way with books. Working here I come across many, many books and without fail I check out books by how attractive I find the book jacket design. The one thing I have noticed that there are themes in jacket design that cross the borders of authors, publishing houses’ and genres. Sort of like how “kale” mysteriously became the hot new “super food”.

Here are just a few of the stylistic trends I have noticed:

Silhouettes – and I don’t just mean negative images I mean hard core old timey paper cutting designs. Though am pretty sure they were all done on computers. The only cover I found that is apropos is , you guessed it, a book on “paper cutting” See my ever growing collection of silhouette dust jackets on Pinterest here.                                                                                                       

Scary Woods – Apparently there is nothing creepier than misty woods. Be it a horror fiction or a thriller this is a very popular theme.

Stylized Nature Design – This is a hot one! The title will always be in an elegant font amidst art work of flowers, insects and woodland creatures.  Owls and butterflies abound!

I could seriously expound on this topic forever but instead will leave you with the large collection of book jackets I have collected on our Pinterest dust jacket board here.