The Australian Publishers Association Book Design Awards are a shortlist of excellent designs. To see a variety of styles, see the roundup of the 2010 award winners on Readings.com.
The Best Designed Book of the Year was Etcetera by Sibella Court, designed by Reuben Crossman.
A recent Lifehacker article about caffeine brought this 1997 book by Stephen R. Braun to my attention: Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine.
The title in the black oval is a good example of negative space. I’m not so keen on the use of Brush Script for the subtitle font. Still, great cover overall.
Although I’ve been following Adam Maxwell on Twitter for a while — he’s @IsayItsAdam — I hadn’t realized the quality of his cover art. His book covers convey the whimsical, retro atmosphere of his writing perfectly. Take a look at the covers in this blog post, and his titles on Feedbooks.
The Observer‘s Tom Lamont takes a look at differences between cover art in different countries.
Link: “Design: Don’t judge a book by its cover, particularly in France”