Cover art

Book cover

A book cover is usually made up of images (illustrations, photographs, or a combination of both) and text. It emerged in the 19th century when books started to become mass-produced. It usually includes the book title and author and can also include (but not always) a book tagline or quote. The book cover design is usually designed by a graphic designer or book designer, working in-house at a publisher or freelance. Authors can make suggestions for book cover design elements (e.g., a preferred color) but rarely communicate directly with the designer. Once the front cover art has been approved, they will then continue to design the layout of the spine (including the book title, author name and publisher imprint logo) and the back cover (usually including a book blurb and sometimes the barcode and publisher logo). Books can be designed as a set of series or as an individual design. Very commonly, the same book will be designed with a different cover in different countries to suit the specific audience. For example, a cover designed for Australia may have a completely different design in the United Kingdom and again in the United States.

Book covers need to be effective at marketing, which can encourage reliance on stereotypical representations. For example, if the marketing strategy emphasizes that the author is a woman, then the cover might be designed in stereotypical feminine colors such as pink, and if the publisher wants to emphasize that the author is from a particular ethnic background, then the cover might include stereotypical representations of people from that ethnic group.

Book cover art has had books written on the subject. Numerous artists have become noted for their book cover art, including Richard M. Powers and Chip Kidd. In one of the most recognizable book covers in American literature, two sad female eyes (and bright red lips) adrift in the deep blue of a night sky, hover ominously above a skyline that glows like a carnival. Evocative of sorrow and excess, the haunting image has become so inextricably linked to The Great Gatsby that it still adorns the cover of F. Scott Fitzgerald's book 88 years after its debut. The iconic cover art was created by Spanish artist Francis Cugat. With the release of a big Hollywood movie, however, some printings of the book have abandoned the classic cover in favor of one that ties in more closely with the film.

Magazine cover

First showing in the 1900s, illustrated covers became common with magazines like Vogue and Cosmopolitan featuring full-page illustrations. The first magazine cover with a photo appeared in 1932. Vogue was one of the first to adopt photography, and its first full-color photo cover was in July 1932. Artists such as Salvador Dalí, Man Ray, and Juan Miró contributed covers to Vogue in the 1940s. Magazine cover artists include Art Spiegelman, who modernized the look of The New Yorker magazine, and his predecessor Rea Irvin, who created the Eustace Tilly character for the magazine. Magazine cover artists who were well known for capturing important political and social issues of the day include Norman Rockwell, whose work appeared 322 times on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post (11 featuring the Willie Gillis character), and Dennis Wheeler, whose 40 covers for Time magazine illustrated social movements and news events of the 1960s and 1970s; seven of them are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Mad magazine has a long history of placing the Alfred E. Neuman character prominently on its cover. Magazine cover art has also been used by the Works Progress Administration to promote knowledge in cities such as New York, Washington DC, and the state of Illinois.

Tabloid cover

Today, the word tabloid is used as a derogatory descriptor of a style of journalism, rather than its original intent as an indicator of half-broadsheet size. This tends to cloud the fact that the great tabloids were skilfully produced amalgams of human interest stories told with punchy brevity, a clarity drawn from the choice of simple but effective words and often with a dose of wit. The gossipy tabloid scandal sheets, as we know them today, have been around since 1830. That's when Benjamin Day and James Gordon Bennett Sr., the respective publishers of The Sun and the New York Herald, launched what became known as the penny press (whose papers sold for one cent apiece). But some of what is considered the world's best journalism has been tabloid. From the days when John Pilger revealed the truth of Cambodia's Killing Fields in the Daily Mirror, to the stream of revelations that showed the hypocrisy of John Major's "back to basics" cabinet, award-winning writing in the tabloids is acknowledged every year at the National Press Awards.

Comic book cover

Comic book covers are most often defined by their use of characters, having the main character of the comic be front and center within the composition. The Logo of the franchise of that comic book is typically located towards the top of the cover.

Concerns over alleged violence and sexual illusions within comic books lead to Dr. Fredric Wertham produced Seduction of the Innocent which argued in favor of these concerns. Public sentiment towards comic books shifted negatively after Wertham’s book was published which culminated in a Senate Subcommittee hearing over the issue. With rising legal and public concerns many comic book publishers formed the Comics Code Authority which placed harsh restrictions on comic book writers and publishers to avoid sexually evocative or realistic crime scenes. The Comics Code Authority seal was included on all comic books sold in stores from the publishers behind the Comics Code Authority. The seal stayed a permanent fixture of comic book cover art until January, 2011.

Sheet music cover

Sheet music cover artists include Frederick Stewart Manning, William Austin Starmer and Frederick Waite Starmer, all three of whom worked for Jerome H. Remick. Other prolific artists included Albert Wilfred Barbelle, André C. De Takacs, and Gene Buck. E. H. Pfeiffer did cover illustrations for Gotham-Attucks; Remick, F.B. Haviland Pub. Co.; Jerome & Schwartz Publishing Company; Lew Berk Music Company; Waterson, Berlin & Snyder, Inc.; and others.