Certainly we should not blame the designers who have produced surprisingly effective covers given the limitations they were surely working under. Ultimately, neither the UK cover or its American counterpart are going to win design awards. But neither are they terrible, and given the expectations for this book (and the controversy surrounding it), we should be grateful for that. For all its brash intent, it’s a cleverer cover than it first appears. This bold placement of the old title between the lines of the new triggered a slew of obvious jokes on Twitter, but it is actually rather ingenious - the designer neatly accommodates a remarkably large font size and, at the same time, slides in a wry allusion to the long shadow of To Kill A Mockingbird - a far wittier, nuanced joke than the repeated ‘Go Set A To Kill A Watchman Mockingbird’ gags online. If you miss the author’s name and the silhouette of a mockingbird at the top of the cover, the words To Kill A Mockingbird loom large at the bottom. Less book jacket than a glaring burnt orange advertisement, it is meant to be read at small sizes online (pre-orders, pre-orders, pre-orders….), or piled up at a distance. It’s all fear, urgency and speeding danger - the stencilled letters telling you (in case you hadn’t quite figured it out yet) that this book means serious business… Armchair psychoanalysts have at it.Įven so, there’s no getting away from the fact that it is vibrant and bluntly effective. The design itself, with its hot purple sky, rugged mountains, ominous dark tunnel, tilted railway sleepers, and - let’s face it - bloody enormous red warning light, is far from nostalgic. It evokes both the passing of time and the desire, perhaps, to return to the past.Ītlas Shrugged, on the other hand, is simply a period piece. The ruler-straight horizon and railway sleepers give it steadiness and calm.
Go Set A Watchmen, with its (faux) hand-brushed letters, golden leaves, old-fashioned locomotive, and evening blue hue is wistful and nostalgic.
More importantly in my opinion, the mood of the covers is in stark contrast. The composition, colour, and lettering are all quite different. Certainly, the covers do compliment each other - a testament to how well Taylor has captured the tone of the period - but the minor similarities grind to a halt at yellow train lines and the design of a headlamp.
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