“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is a terrible piece of advice. Books can and should be judged by their covers – the aesthetics is part of the pleasure. How else would you be able to post what you’re reading on social media? Will nobody think of the men sitting in a bar with a particularly hot bit of fiction , trying to lure over an equally hot date? And when the book in question is one of the biggest releases of the year, a good cover design can help it match the hype.
There will be few books released in 2024 bigger than Intermezzo , Sally Rooney’s fourth novel. Earlier this year, the publisher Faber even teased its opening lines , such is the anticipation for it. This month, the full design of the Intermezzo hardback – to be released on 24 September – was revealed.
The author’s name and central illustration – of a knocked-over chess piece and a distant figure framed between someone else’s legs – are a deep, vivid blue. On the back and inside, the chess theme is continued via a checkerboard pattern (the novel centres on two brothers, one of whom is a competitive chess player). It’s the work of Kishan Rajani, a senior designer at Faber.
GQ talked to him and Pete Adlington, the publisher’s art director, about how the Intermezzo design came together, the role of social media in modern book design, and how to make books “as pickupable as possible.” What was the design process for Intermezzo ? Was it different to Faber’s less high-profile releas.