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We often decide to buy a book based on the recommendation of a friend, a literary critic, or because we are interested in the author or the subject matter. But other times, let’s admit it, we wander around the bookshop without anything specific in mind, and let ourselves be taken in by the aesthetics of the cover. Bright colours, enigmatic drawings or unique styles.
Faced with an abundance of choices, both digital and in print, a good cover is key among publishers’ commercial strategies, who are looking for their own identity to attract potential readers. Just as with the text itself, the process of designing the book can take months of work. And they are created by prestigious artists, whose names are just as important as the author when it comes to promoting the work.
Such is the case of the London-based designer Emma Ewbank, one of the most renowned in the publishing industry thanks to the quality of her creations, whose covers populate the shelves of avid readers around the world. She has spent two decades working for leading clients such as HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Random House, Dead Ink, Penguin, and Bloomsbury, among many others.
The exhibition that changed everything
Her journey into book cover design began towards the end of her university career, when Ewbank was still unclear about which branch of art she wanted to pursue. In 2005, an exhibition at the V&A Museum in London changed everything. To celebrate its 70th anniversary, the publisher Penguin commissioned 70 different artists to design covers for a unique series of 70 books, also showcasing the process of creation.
That’s when it became clear to her: she wanted to become a book cover designer. Despite not having much software knowledge, she landed a job at Collins designing the covers and internal flaps of books about gardening and cookery, where she acquired the numerous skills that helped her become the artist she is today.
Photographic covers
Over the course of her career, Ewbank has created a multitude of iconic book covers, including classics such as the complete works of Jane Austen and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”, which was shortlisted for an ABCD award in 2014.
A cover does not necessarily have to be descriptive, but it must convey the concept of the book on a graphic level, be it through a photograph, an illustration or even the typography. This decision is up to the editorial and sales teams. When a photographic cover is required, Ewbank usually turns to image banks first. A photo shoot is organised only on rare occasions, since they usual require a high budget.
Some of her most notable photographic covers include “A Theatre for Dreamers” (Polly Samson), “Pretty Young Rebel” (Flora Fraser), “Whereabouts” (Jhumpa Lahiri) and “Above Us The Sea” (Ania Card). The latter was chosen as one of the best covers of 2024 by the industry, as it perfectly captures the murky story narrated by the book, both in its image and the positioning of the title.
Illustrated covers
In terms of illustrated covers, one of the London artist’s most significant commissions was that of “Losing the Plot” by Derek Owusu, considered one of the best contemporary British novelists. The book chronicles the complex relationship between a mother who has been uprooted from her homeland in Ghana and her son. After various sketches, Ewbank created abstract figures in the style of Matisse; the mother’s head leans away from the baby, but she also extends one of her hands to protect him, representing the combination of deep love and disconnection in their relationship. The text spirals around it on both the front and back covers. The Washington Post highlighted it as one of the best book cover designs of 2022.
Typographic covers
Book covers are increasingly using typography as a prominent element, giving personality to the book, often even taking up the entire space. Ewbank is a master of this art, as we can see with titles such as “Women Are Angry” (Jennifer Cox), “Think Like a Therapist” (Stephen Joseph), “Hood Feminism” (Mikki Kendall) and “The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe” (Sarah Churchwell).
The letters of the title combined with the illustrations, or even interspersed with the drawings, are also one of the artist’s hallmarks. “The Marriage Portrait” (Maggie O’Farrell), “Euphoria” (Elin Cullhed), “The Weil Conjectures” (Karen Olsson) and “Land of the Living” (Georgina Harding) are just some examples.
Richness of style
The Ewbank universe is surprisingly rich in styles and techniques. You only need to look at the embossed cover of “A Line in the River” (Jamal Mahjoub), shortlisted for the British Book and Production Awards in 2018. Or the origami of “A Thousand Paper Birds” (Tor Udall), a book which reflects on loss through a group of characters (one of whom is an origami artist) against the backdrop of Kew Gardens. The goal was therefore to make paper and nature the key themes. To add depth to the cover, Ewbank created three different layers, mounted them on top of each other, then photographed them and refined them in Photoshop.
For “The Silk Roads”, Peter Frankopan’s work about the history of the world as seen from the lands along the Silk Road, the designer was inspired by the mosque of Isfahan, in Iran, for its incredible cover. But the most impressive feat is to have maintained the same aesthetic coherence in the historian’s later works, such as “The New Silk Roads” and “The Earth Transformed”.
In short, Ewbank’s creations can turn any cover into a design with its own personality, inviting us to – why not? – buy a book just for the cover.