For every cover that ends up on a finished book, there will be countless that don’t. Whilst it might be dispiriting to think over the amount of work produced that gets consigned to the book cover graveyard (although in some lucky cases the covers can be used again), valuable lessons can be learnt from the process. Fourteen designers will share their own killed cover stories, giving a rare behind the scenes glimpse into the book covers we know so well.

We will be creating our own book cover graveyard to accompany the talk that will be exhibited throughout the evening. If you would like to contribute your own killed cover/s to be part of this, please email your visuals as 300dpi RGB jpegs labelled with your name to beckychilcott@gmail.com. Please also include any relevant credits in your email. (Maximum of four visuals per person).

The Killed Covers project first came to life in a limited edition publication produced by Nico Taylor, Ceara Elliot and Jack Smyth through the Studio of Ideas they set up whilst working at the Little, Brown Book Group in 2016. We would like to thank them, and Jon Gray and Jamie Keenan for all their help and advise co-curating this lecture.