Judging a book by its cover, or, the "Charlotte Harbach" project

We all like to think we obey the old adage, but how honest are we being with ourselves when we protest how unbiased we are about cover design? I've seen otherwise sensible people set aside books because of the covers, I've probably even done it myself.

Particularly, the conventions of design for "women's fiction" are so well known as to be a joke, categorized as "those books with shoes on the cover" or "all those pink covers that just look the same." In her recent New York Times op-ed about fiction by women being critically considered on a different plane from fiction by men, Meg Wolitzer writes, "A writer’s own publisher can be part of a process of effective segregation and vague if unintentional put-down. Look at some of the jackets of novels by women. Laundry hanging on a line. A little girl in a field of wildflowers. A pair of shoes on a beach. An empty swing on the porch of an old yellow house."

In that spirit, I decided to remake five covers from books by men that were published in 2012, "re-gendering" them by name and design. (I also took a counter example and gave the same treatment to a novel by a woman published in the same year.) I have nowhere near the skill and talents of a professional graphic designer, so consider this a thought experiment; I tried not to make any intentionally foolish choices (use of Comic Sans, for example).

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And just for fun, a counter-example:

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Photo credits: Tyler Wilson (ART OF FIELDING), Jolante van Hemert (PARALLEL STORIES), Faylyne (HOUSE OF HOLES), Gillie (ARGUABLY), Quinn Dombrowski (THE MARRIAGE PLOT) and bagsgroove (THEN CAME YOU) All photos are protected under a Creative Commons license. Covers were created using the free software Gnutella Image Manipulation Program (G.I.M.P.).