A lot of people who work with books take book covers kind of personally. It goes like this:
One part "I love you I want you to look beautiful and cool"One part "Don't make me look at your lame design"
5 parts "How do you expect me to sell this book when it looks like that?!"
Shake over ice, strain into a pitcher. Guzzle.
Leading to a profound sense of personal betrayal when one of your favorite authors ends up between the covers of something that looks like this:
Eeeuuurrgh. That poor man. He's Canadian, maybe that's why his publisher thinks that a murky 90's constructivist/disco album cover is the way to go. That thing looks like (the Human League) + (Stalin - mustache) x (abandoned on a roof).
The book cover trend I've had my eye on recently is graphic illustration - I mean graphic like simple shapes, not graphic like a knife through an eyeball. Like this:
