A new bookcover design trend?
It's World Book Day and I have stumbled about this:
A video by book blogger Willow of ‘Willow talks Books’ is about this new book, a lesbian retelling of Sheridan Le Fanu's ‘Carmilla’. This new book, ‘Hungerstone’ by Kat Dunne, is supposed to be very good, but that's not my point.
Willow says in her video that it's apparently a new trend in some genres to put large lettering over the image of a historical painting.
Let me say something about this from the perspective of someone who has studied graphic design.
I don't think it's pretty. The huge letters here look like they've been carelessly slapped over the image, the bright pink and the cold yellow don't really match the painting. But above all, I think it's a shame that some of the painting is barely visible.
In addition, the font doesn't suit a historical (or historicising) novel.
Of course, this is ultimately a matter of taste.
But if this really is to become a new trend in the English-speaking world for one or more genres, I hope two things:
That this trend will soon disappear again and something nicer will become the trend.
That the trend doesn't gain a foothold in the German-language book market.
