T10T: Frequently Used Cover Designs in YA

April 24, 2018

TTT-Big2

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly blog meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week’s prompt was actually to pick “Frequently Used Words In [Insert Genre/Age Group] Titles”, but, well… you guys surely know by now how much I love changing things up a bit, so I decided to go with frequently used cover designs!

NOTE: For the record, I’m not making fun of these books or their covers (I happen to like a lot of them!), nor am I calling them “over” used… I just thought it was neat that some of these pop up so much on my shelves or on Goodreads!


1. Girls with Weapons

1

2. Close-Ups of Girls’ Body Parts

2

3. Close-Ups of Girls’ Faces

3

4. Food

4

5. Flowers

5

6. Bursts/Splashes of Colors On White Backgrounds

6

7. Dragons

7

8. Ravens and/or Crows

8

9. Weapons (by themselves)

9

10. Silhouettes

10


Is there any particular “theme” that you feel like you see repeated a lot in your personal library?


{TWITTER . BOOKSTAGRAM . FACEBOOK . GOODREADS}

More about Destiny @ Howling Libraries

Just a horror aficionado/geek girl trying to juggle motherhood, reading, blogging, gaming, and everyday life.

Leave a comment
    1. I love simplictistic covers. I love it when the font is the focal point with a white or black background. The photographer in me also loves covers where it’s a photograph.

        1. Thank you! I have debating about sharing some of my work for a while now but I get so nervous and second guess myself. I do have a photography facebook page if you want to look at it. I can DM you if you want! No worries if you don’t though! lol.

    1. I love this idea.It is interesting to see that it is so often girls faces and body parts that make the covers. Rarely are they guys.

      1. Right! And when it is a guy, it’s typically either a really “cool” looking scene (like the Percy covers, where it’s all action and monsters and such), or it’s a harlequin romance type cover with a shirtless guy.

    1. Love this list!
      Such beautiful colours!
      I think i love the colour splashes the most <3

    1. I love your twist on the list topic! I am always drawn to a cover with a girl with a weapon and flowers are very attractive as well. Books with faces can be so ugly though haha

      1. Thank you so much! ♥ The girls with weapons and the flowery ones always pull me in, too – but I also agree about the zoomed-in face covers, haha. One that comes to mind for me is actually The Uglies – I hated the original cover for that book! I like the new white one with the person under the sheet or whatever, though. It’s kinda creepy in a good way, haha.

    1. This was a great idea! It’s interesting, I usually shy away from covers with weapons on them (so overdone!) But I don’t mind it when I see GIRLS with weapons, lol.

      1. Thank you! Haha yes, something about it being a cool model or artwork of a badass chick holding a weapon honestly makes it way more interesting than just a zoomed-in artwork of a sword or something.

      1. Thank you so much! I like the ones with a whole cover model, but I’m not very big on the zoomed-in faces. Every now and then, if I really dislike a cover, I’ll buy it on my kindle (even if it’s the same cost as the physical one) just to avoid having it on my shelf, lol!

    1. I am all for these badass ladies with their weapons! Happy that’s a trend now. Also the food. Food is the best. You found so many gorgeous covers! Sigh.

      1. Yessss, me too! It’s such a cool cover – especially when executed well. A recent one that I love (and wish I’d thought to add) is Dread Nation – I love the picture of her holding her sickle! Aww, thank you! ♥

      1. Bahaha I agree, especially yummy foods! There’s one book – I can’t recall the name of it right now – but its cover has strawberries dipped in gold, and every time I see it, it makes me sooo hungry for berries, lol!

    1. the color splash ones/bright patterns lately are insane!! i swear every cover is like a pretty pattern with that one calligraphy font. can’t tell books apart for sh*t

      1. Lmaoooo, WORD though. I feel like this a lot, too – it took me a YEAR to be able to remember the difference between I’ll Give You the Sun and The Sun is Also a Star, between the “sun” titles and the color splashes.

    1. I missed this week’s topic 🙁 I had no time to write a post. But I loved what you did here 🙂 I totally agree with you on all of the above categories. We are often seen the repetitions on YA covers.

      1. Oh, no! I always try to do my T10T posts the weekend before just so I don’t miss them, because I feel like Mondays are such busy days for me! I hope you’re able to next week so I can read your post hehe! ♥ And thank you!

    1. These are something interesting themes that I probably wouldn’t have picked up on! I like seeing all the covers together… My first thought when I read this topic was something like “books with big bold metallic fonts”, kind of like on the cover for Now I Rise (see also: Walk on Earth a Stranger, The Star-Touched Queen).

      1. Thank you, Jenna! 😀 I’m not sure what made me notice it but I think it was when I had a bookstagram prompt to show off covers with birds on them, and I realized I had, like, EIGHT books with crows and ravens on them! So then I started paying attention to my shelves more and noticed it – it’s so weird! Yes, I do see a lot of bold metallic fonts lately – which is funny, because I’m such a sucker for that stylistic choice? I’m not sure why, but I really love how it “pops”!

Say hello! ♥

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d