There are a few common misconceptions about Lover that I want to get out of the way before we go into it. First: "Lover only has love songs." Wrong. Lover only has songs about love, but that could mean anything, from romantic "love songs" to heartbreak songs to songs in grief to songs enraged without society's love. Really, the album is about moving on from the dark reputation period and watching the sunrise. Second: "Lover is for kids." Yes, she says, "Hey kids, spelling is fun!" in the original version of "ME!" but that does not mean this is a kids album! What child would you let hear "False God," or even "I Think He Knows"? "The Archer" is far too intense for children. Third: "Lover is Taylor's worst album." People who think that can leave. They can leave right now. Lover is not necessarily her best, but this is the writer of "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" we're talking about. Not her best means deserves a Grammy, in this case.
Maybe I should let the covers explain the nuances of Lover, yeah? Without further ado, I give you: Lover as books.
This is one of my favorites out of all the cover I've ever made. I forget what song it was originally for, but it definitely wasn't "IFTYE," and then while I was putting the elements together, I knew that it couldn't be anything except a self-help book. Recently, self-help books have funny, unexpected titles, and this song fits that so well (especially with the parenthetical subtitle). For the description, I wanted to make it more basic and reflect the themes of the album as a whole.
Another one of my favorites. I spent a long time on that title, and it turned out exactly how I wanted it to. For the description, I mostly focused on following the clear story told in the song. I especially love the line, "the girl with a few too many knives in her back;" I think it reflects both people's opinions of Taylor at the time and the mindset of the character in the song.
I'm going to be honest: this one isn't my favorite. But, in a way, I made it not my favorite on purpose. It's supposed to be the movie edition, and when are movie covers ever any good? Especially when it's coming from Netflix; they don't always work as hard when it comes to book advertising for the adaptation when compared to movie studios who are counting on the fanbase to buy tickets.
Another cover that I think I really nailed. It's serious adult fiction, and I think the standoffish attitude of the color scheme and the font choices and the text placement communicates that. I also love the plot I made. I don't think it's the best blurb I've ever written (there was quite a bit of cutting down), but I think it's creative while still sticking to the song.
This was maybe the toughest cover I've ever made. When a song is really meaningful to me, I'm less inspired to make something beautiful for it and more terrified of missing parts of whatever dauntingly fantastic song I'm working on. "The Archer" has always been one of my all-time favorites from her, so creating something that captures the range of emotions I feel in the song was hard. I landed on reflective fantasy with a serious but simplistic cover.
She's fun, you know? She's Emily in Paris meets 1989 meets Casey McQuiston. I wanted something playful for the cover with a clear logo-ish title that could obviously be used for marketing. I wanted it to seem like a low budget book that suddenly has a very high budget TV show. I think the plot concept pairs well with the song, which can be slightly challenging for less story-oriented lyrics.
This was one of the very first covers I've ever made, and although there were a few recent tweaks, it's held up nicely. It's a little serious for the contemporary, politically-charged rom com plot, but I love the photo, especially for a Lover song. I actually noticed a couple lyrics in other songs ("light pink sky, up on the roof… / something gave you the nerve / to touch my hand" in "INTHAF" and "sat on the roof, you and I" in "Cornelia Street") that match the photo, which I thought was fun.
Tell me this is not a bestselling, year-end-favorite romantic comedy. This is the beach read to end all beach reads. This is Young Royals but switch out all of the brooding with lighthearted, good ol' American fun. The color scheme is everything, the font is everything, the names of the characters are everything. I have peaked with this cover.
Another cover that turned out really well. Making the street signs look good took longer than I'd like to admit (please don't zoom in on the arrowhead of the ONE WAY sign; I was doing my best), but I'm happy with how they turned out. The color scheme is soft, very borderline romance-rom com. Overall, well done, in my opinion.
The sequel to Paper Rings just when you thought it couldn't get any cuter, am I right? The plot is giving Always and Forever, Lara Jean but less straight. I know that the lyrics connection of "paper cuts sting from our paper-thin plans" in this song and the entire concept of "Paper Rings" is a favorite amongst Lover Swifties, so I wanted to honor that and turn the two books into a series.
My goal for this one was to convey mid-2000s romantic comedies that are both very popular and very unrecognizable. It follows the formula of a rom com cover—bright blues and yellows, simple drawing of the protagonist with their love interest, and playful fonts—while still somehow being just the tiniest bit displeasing to the eye.
This was hard to make. I know this song means a lot to a lot of people, and I wanted to show all of the beauty in it that I could. I wanted it to look a little like a doctor's note while still feeling serious. It ended up looking like Tuesdays with Morrie, which is funny to me because I sort of hate the cover of that book. (And the contents. A review is in the works.) I'd like to formally apologize to Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer, the other two members of the Chicks. I thought a forward written by three people would be weird, so I picked the lead singer.
Isn't this gorgeous? It was one of those covers that came to me suddenly and was finished within the hour. I have a black-and-orange edition of Dune that I was inspired by. For the plot, I thought I should have it set on Mars because the planet on the cover is orange (obviously it has to be high fantasy/sci-fi—just look at it). I wanted it to be the kind of book that clearly has a huge world and a serious, more adult aspect to it (again, Dune-inspired).
This one is amazing and adorable, and I will not be taking feedback for that statement. I really tried to draw from the aesthetics of popular comedy memoirs while also mixing a little with the vibe of This Books is Gay by Juno Dawson. The music video, specifically the celebrity appearances in it, is super important to the culture of the song, so I made sure to include that this isn't just by Taylor; it's also from the amazing list of people who were in the video (I know, usually a book would have all of the names on the cover, but I thought I would do something more like when a TV show says "created by" with only one name, but then there are a thousand other names listed later.
"Afterglow" is secretly a serious and beautiful song about deep trauma (I say secretly because it's tragically underrated). I wanted that to be reflected in the cover, so I went more realistic fiction with international respect for the cover. Books with abstract designs are big in that category, similar to Somebody's Daughter but less memoir. Like plenty of other covers, I made the romantic aspect a queer relationship. Even though many of Taylor's songs, including this one, have an undisputed muse from a straight relationship, lots of people, including myself, see a queer story in them. That experience can be pushed to the side a lot, especially when who the song is about is such news, so I purposely tried to add in queer characters where it felt right.
"ME!" is a love-it-or-hate-it kind of song, and, personally, I love it. It was supposed to be silly and an all-around good time, which I think it achieved spectacularly. (Were there other songs that deserved lead single status? Yes. A thousand percent. "Cruel Summer" all the way.) For this cover, as you probably noticed, the format is a little different. I wanted it to be a picture book to capture the childlike feel of the song, so there's no spine and no real blurb. Picture books are slightly foreign to me, but I think I did a decent job at capturing a style within the genre.
I just think this is pretty. There aren't a lot of covers that I make that I think are pretty in the truest sense of the word, but I guess it's fitting here, since "INTHAF" is a wholly pretty song. I love the font; it looks like one I've seen on a few different novels, and I haven't been able to figure out when to use it until now. I specifically mentioned "the queer experience" in this book because the lyrics have gay subtext everywhere, and I thought that it should be a core part of the book.
I'm going to be honest, this cover didn't have much of a direction while I was making it. Originally, I'd planned to make it a memoir, but there were already multiple nonfiction or nonfiction-ish books in the album, so I decided against it. Similar to "The Archer," "Daylight" is really personal to me. Even just reading the lyrics of the outro gives me chills. I worked really hard to tie the song to the cover with the plot, which treads a little in 1989 territory but more mature.
There you have it, the full album. Which was your favorite? I am personally partial to "Paper Rings," but there are a lot of great ones. I love my covers more and more with each album.
This album was definitely a more meaningful experience for me than 1989 or reputation. Lover was the album that first got me into Taylor's music, and all of the songs hold a special place in my heart. For a long time, I ranked it as her best (I have no ranking anymore; it just got too hard). Lover paints a picture of healing and moving on and finding self-acceptance despite not receiving the same kind of love from the rest of the world. When talking about Taylor's fantastic lyrics, people tend to skip over this album, but I always notice a lot of little details in the songs while creating these, and trust me when I say that this album has some of the most impressive and fantastic lyrics Taylor has ever written. If you haven't listened to the album in its entirety yet, take one hour out of your day—just one hour—and listen to it. Read the lyrics; let them soak in. I guarantee you that their beauty will shock you and their truth will move you.
Later this month is the book blogiversary, so I have a fun post planned and (mostly) prepped. If you made it this far, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I know this is on the longer side—the amount of time it took to make it was certainly on the longer side—but I really do have such a good time stretching my creativity and making these covers. Until next time, keep reading, readers.