David Mitchell’s new novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, is, without a doubt, one of the most anticipated titles of the summer. So one wonders how it ended up with a cover this ugly:
This is clearly a case where the book is going to sell fairly well on its own, so why go with something so eye-scrapingly ugly? If you wanted it to stand out, why not just put “David Mitchell’s New Novel” up there in 100 point type.
Frankly, what most gets me about this cover isn’t the palette. (I’ve seen better, but it’s not that terrible.) No, what I really despise about this cover is that font, the text that is both transparent and floating and off-kilter, all at once. This eager Photoshop operator clearly should have been restraining himself.
You haven’t seen the Franzen cover yet, have you…
Granted, the Franzen isn’t winning any beauty contests, but can it match THE FONT?
Maybe it’s some kind of karmic backlash because the cover of Ghostwritten is so beautiful?
Seriously, tho: hard to believe an author of his stature couldn’t/wouldn’t tell the designer, “try again, mate.”
Scanning the various UK and US covers for all his books, it seems like the designers are trying a little too hard. Ghostwritten stands out a minimalist in comparison to a lot of the other ones. Maybe covers such as these are the curse of writing such fragmented narratives . . .
[...] And then I explain why I think that people will by David Mitchell’s new book in spite of it having what must be the ugliest cover of any serious literary title this year. [...]