It’s that time of year when we start to see a lot “top 5″ and “top 10″ lists. You know, the top 10 best bikini bodies of 2010. [ Except, this is a place for me to reflect on design, so we'll skip the celebrity smut, shall we? ] Quill and Quire recently announced its top five Canadian book covers, and they are a great bunch.

Design credits, left to right: Goya’s Dog (David Gee); Fauna (Jennifer Lum); Kenk (Nick Marinkovich, Alex Jansen & Jason Gilmore); Cigar Box Banjo (Heather Pringle); Seven Good Reasons not to be Good (David Gee)

My personal favourite is Heather Pringle’s design for Cigar Box Banjo. I love how rich it feels, and the dimension the design gives to the cover, and the joy it seems to express. I am also struck by the similarity of the cover designs for Cigar Box Banjo and Seven Good Reasons not to be Good. Both use movement and direction to jump the eye around the cover… but with completely different (really, almost opposite) design aesthetics. And yet my first thought when seeing them was “wow, they’re so similar!”

Anyway, nice work! You can read more about each selection on Quill & Quire’s website.