Rodrigo Corral's Cover for the Area X Hardcover

Eye on Design has run a very nice piece on Rodrigo Corral's cover for Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy, including comments from Corral. I think the cover's probably the best I've ever had for a book--simple yet complex, and daring from a commercial standpoint. There's great attention to detail, starting with the deliberate juxtaposition of a natural element and an element in orange that suggestions caution/danger and something human-made. The play of shadows from the leaves against the orange stripe adds a three-dimensional aspect. The treatment on the spine continues a theme both of taking risks and a certain playfulness. It's no wonder the New York Times chose Area X as one of its covers of the year.As someone who has been the art director for an indie press and who also usually has a say-so in the creation of covers of my books it's been a great joy to, quite frankly, be relegated to giving comments like "looks wonderful!" That's a sentiment that extends to the marvelous trade paperbacks designed by Charlotte Strick with art by Eric Nyquist, and all of the rather ridiculously excellent foreign editions. Sometime soon it might be time to create a slideshow with all of them.