The Shades of Magic is a trilogy by New York Times bestselling author V.E. Schwab, published by Tor Books.

The first book, A Darker Shade of Magic, hit shelves in February 2015, followed by A Gathering of Shadows in 2016 and A Conjuring of Light in 2017. In the same year it was announced that Sony won a bidding war over the movie rights to A Darker Shade of Magic.

For the book covers, designer and illustrator Will Staehle chose the font Polyspring by PintassilgoPrints. He comments:

Once we locked on this design we went back and forth on a few possible type solutions, but ended up with this narrow serif. Lettering that feels a bit turn-of-the-century, while also creating a nice contrast from the very strong graphic circles of the cover.

Read more about the cover design process of the book A Darker Shade of Magic and see other cover approaches commented by Tor Books Art Director Irene Gallo on Tor’s website:

It is both playful and smart, sugesting that there is a really fun and clever adventure to be had.

Front cover.

Two renditions of Jacques Brel’s songs. “La Chanson de Jacky”, translated to English as “Jackie”, and “Amsterdam” which inspired David Bowie's cover of the same song years later.

A nice use of Georg Trump’s Amati on front and back of this Dutch 45 RPM sleeve. See also the German release of Jackie (with a different B-side), using Caslon Rounded.

Back cover.