100 days of judging a book by it's cover : Day 69: Harry Potter e La Pietra Filosofale by J.K. Rowling

I stumbled across an article in The Observer where writer Tom Lamont wonders why the same books in different countries are given completely different covers.

Take for example the above Harry Potter book cover. What prompted the Italian designers to give young Harry a mouse-shaped hat...wait what?

Of course there are the emotional reasons as to why:

"What you are trying to get across on a cover is the essence of a book, quite an ambiguous thing," says Nathan Burton, a British designer. "Designers in different countries read and interpret the fiction in different ways."

And the business reasons:

Julian Humphries, head cover designer at Fourth Estate: "Different sales channels have different sensibilities," It can be hard to pinpoint what exactly these sensibilities are – "It's a cultural thing," he says, "as taste-driven as different countries eating different things for breakfast"

So there's a few obvious reasons as to why this is done. What comes from this is a majestic range of Harry Potter covers that you may not have seen before. Here are some of my favourites!