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I'm guessing that the vast majority of readers couldn't name a single book designer. Genre fans could maybe name a cover artist or to, especially fans of fantasy. Of course, everyone has an opinion about which book covers they like and which ones they don't, about which are appealing and which ones repel, but most folks don't dwell on the design of books any more than they ponder the design of breakfast cereal boxes.

And that's okay. Except computers have made it possible for everyone of us to be a publisher, and many people find that designing things is now an unspoken requirement of their jobs and their hobbies. People are expecting to put together professional-looking slide shows or professional-looking blogs without having studied any aspect of graphic design ever. If this is you, regardless of your age, allow me to recommend this fine book. Kidd manages to distill all the broader concepts of design (color, space, font, etc.) into a simple format. Book lovers will appreciate that many book covers are included to illustrate the points.

Natasha liked it, she's twelve and interested in art (she'd like to be a Pixar animator one day). I liked it, because even though I knew what he was teaching already, his examples were so well chosen. And, as I say, lots of book jackets as illustrations. Plus, the book itself is just cool-looking.

Sadly, he didn't go into my personal favorite fun fact of cover design. Knopf uses a little Borzoi emblem on the spine of their books. Most publishers have a tiny logo they they use, Knopf has a dog. As far as I have seen, though, Knopf is the only publisher who changes their little dog image to suit the style of the book cover. The Borzoi on the spine of Geek Love, for example, had five legs. Kidd designed many of the Knopf books that I noticed the changed dog on.

Library copy.