Marina Carral is a designer
based in NYC and CDMX
About
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Marina is a big reader and has always been fascinated by book covers and the stories they tell before you even open the book. She’s especially drawn to romance novels—one of the top-selling genres, which makes up about a third of the fiction market and pulls in over $1 billion a year. Her favorite topic to chat about? How these covers have been totally rebranded in recent years.
Remember when romance novels used to have those covers with shirtless, sometimes barely clothed, people? Those were the books you’d hide away in nightstand drawers or behind other books on the shelf. But now, with their new look—colorful illustrations that barely hint at the steamy scenes inside—they’re no longer hidden away.
The most common saying amongst readers is probably “don’t judge a book by its cover” but often, the cover can tell you everything you need to know to decide wether this book will be added on to your TBR List (To be read). Is the background dark and moody? or bright and colorful? Genres have a language, and once you learn it, judging a book my its cover
When she’s not reading, Marina likes to play around with cover design. She mixes different fonts and colors, hoping to give readers a little preview of what’s inside the pages. Here are some of the designs she’s been experimenting with lately.