Anatomy of a Cover Design

The Graywolf Press discusses the difficulties in creating a cover for a book of poetry.

From the piece...

Almost a year ago, Katie Dublinski assigned me the cover job for The Virtues of Poetry. I always find that poetry books and books about poetry are some of the more elusive subjects to capture on a cover. Designers often use evocative fine art, paired with beautiful type, for these books. For this project, I was struck by one word that the author, James Longenbach, wrote in his cover design notes: “elegance.” In fact, an entire paragraph stayed with me and set me down the path of designing with type for these comps:

If anything, I lean toward a clean, classic looking page—a great typeface, good spacing. I like the look of type itself, and I’m less inclined toward any other kind of ornamentation on the page. Elegance.