Judging Books by Covers: Lord of the Flies

February 9, 2011

Back when I was blogging a lot (or at least not infrequently), I thought up a cool new recurring feature called Judging Books By Covers. I never really went anywhere with it, but it remains one of my favourite ideas. Here I’m republishing the episode in which we looked at nineteen versions of The Lord of the Flies.

Judging Books by Covers: Lord of the Flies (first published 6 June 2008)

Welcome to our new recurring feature, Judging Books by Covers. Over the last several years I’ve become increasingly interested in the way we package our fiction. Through this series I’d like to take a look at book covers and what helps them succeed or fail.

My interest began probably around the time that I started designing DVD covers for my movies—this was a few years back now. Then I occasionally noticed that an interesting cover could entice me to read the book it covered (case in point: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel). Then a few months back I read A Spot of Bother and didn’t like it; and I was put off by the fact that had I picked up a different edition, I would have gotten a cover that more adequately prepared me for the kind of story being told and so I would have quite possibly enjoyed the story. And finally, I purchased and promptly devoured a book collecting Chip Kidd’s book cover designs from the last two decades (which I previously reviewed).

The thing is: Despite proverbial admonitions, we quite naturally judge books by their covers. And more, we are intended to do so. Book covers (or jackets) have three main functions: 1) to visually entice potential readers/consumers to pick the book up; 2) to look nice on a shelf or in one’s hands; and 3) to set the stage of the reader’s mind through its visual cues. I suppose dust jacket covers also offer a slight degree of physical protection for a book, but that hardly has to do with design as we’re speaking of it here. In any case, book covers succeed or fail based on how they perform and juggle these three objectives.

For our first examination, I thought we’d look at William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, since it’s been through many editions and boasted a variety of covers.

Hopefully you enjoyed that brief tour. In case you’re curious, I thought #10 was probably the best cover for the book.

CATEGORIES: Featured / Judging Books by Covers