If we discount Harry Potter and that vampire series, one of the biggest publishing phenomenons in recent times has to be The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. With the books, the Swedish movie versions and now the beginning of the US movie versions you can’t seem to escape the (deserved) hysteria surrounding Stieg Larrson’s legacy.

re:blog collected and critiqued over 60 variations of covers to derive at a single conclusion: it was difficult to find something that wasn’t clichéd, derivative or downright amateurish.

We agree with the author’s that Peter Mendelsund’s versions for the US market at least strive for a unique representation of the subject matter, but are in love with the deluxe version he did. Simple yet descriptive on several levels. In this publishing instance though bad cover design probably wouldn’t have affected sales too much 🙂

See the whole collection and re:blog’s critique here.