HarperCollins Children’s Books

Demonata Series

Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books

We never said that publishers had to be original in the design of their spines — We simply asked them to put a bit more thought into how they might use them as a communication tool.

We have just seen a good spine for Ciara Geraghty (Elsewhere on this site) which took its lead from the spine for The Raw Shark Texts (Also elsewhere on this site) and now we have a really strong set of spines for Darren Shan’s ‘Demonata’ series inspired by no less a publishing power-brand than the Mr Men series.

It might be an old trick but just look at how well it stands out on the shelf.

And it will fit perfectly with the ‘Collector / Completist’ tendencies’ of many of its young male audience.

Sometimes designers don’t need to re-invent the wheel to make an impact — they just need to put in a bit of effort.

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Posted by: Damian

Friday, November 25th, 2011

Wuthering Heights, Pride & Prejudice, Jane Eyre

Author: Various

Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books

Picture the scene at the covers meeting…

“We need to make our classics appeal to the Twilight market. But how?”

There is a long pause, then realisation dawns. “That’s it! We’ll just copy Stephenie Meyer - they’ll love it!”

So that is what’s happened — a carbon copy of the Twilight covers. But the problem is that these are not vampire stories; and they’re a lot harder to read. If anything’s going to turn a young reader off these books, it’s being conned by the cover into thinking they’ll be an easy or familiar read, only to find the content more challenging than they were led to believe. Of course they need to appeal… but they should also be honest.

We love seeing classics with exciting new approaches. The problem is that this is neither exciting, nor new… nor in any way imaginative. Nor does it credit its target market with even a shred of intelligence - a fatal mistake when selling to teenagers.