Book cover design: What did I do last night? by Tom Sykes.

This is a book that I picked up about a year ago in a charity shop. On the shelves there amongst the Catherine Cookson's and the Mills&Boon, this jumped out at me. It promised an dark, dangerous and exciting read about drinking, getting into trouble and eventually sobering up. Expressive text on the cover lured me in, and I could almost feel the hangover pounding between the intense colours. 

Oh, I'm talking about the cover on the right, published by Random House in 2007. It's a really great read; funny, sad, troubled, but told without too much self pity. I've recommended it to a few people, and generally it has gone down well. I really like the cover, it has a clear spot varnish over the bottle which you can't see on screen, but slightly off. The whole thing to me just captures the mood of the book and I love the expressive, haphazard, inky writing. Recently I entered the Penguin book design competition to design the cover of On the Road, and the type on this book definitely inspired me with my design. So, pretty high praise for this version.

Now, the cover on the left is also Random House but the 2008 version. I found this yesterday while browsing in HMV. This is a very different environment to the charity shop shelf as it has to compete with CD covers and big glossy books full of photos. But I nearly walked past it without noticing. I get that the swirling type on the cover is meant to convey some kind of drunkenness, but for me it's a bit too calculated and dare I say.....chick lit? The 'nice' colours, the extra leg on the 'K' of Sykes, those swirling tendrils; to me this is saying that this book is about lashings of lambrini and a romantic disaster that turns out alright in the end. Centering all the text loses the tension of the asymmetric first cover, and it becomes a lot more predictable to the eye. A couple of swirls isn't going to rescue a dull design. It's easier to design something like the 2008 cover and less risky, and perhaps the publishers felt that the book needed to look more friendly in order to sell. Whatever; I'll be keeping my rough around the edges, rolling, roaring and drunken original in favour of  the simpering, hiccuping and tipsy new version.

*****Latest news: According to my poll, I am correct in analysis of these covers. Thankyou to the one person who voted!