I went with #1. It’s less ‘busy’, is legible, and says ‘no nonsense here’. However, I do prefer function over form, so take it as you will!
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First impression: I chose 1 for its most realistic art which I could ID from and because it has morel mushrooms pictured making me think it gives information on a wide range of edibles. Some foraging books don’t include fungi.
The covers with more stylized art are lovely, but less reassuring that I’ll be able to recognize what I find. Of course, I would never judge a book of this sort without opening it and reading the table of contents.
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This is just for the cover art. Hopefully the contents have actual photographs rather than just drawings. I’ve read some illustrated field guides before just for regular IDs, but when it comes to identifying something I’m going to eat, you’re quite right, it needs to be accurate and recognizable above all else.
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Absolutely. I feel like the “actual picture” works way better than the drawing regarding foraging edible plants.
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2 is my favorite, but 4 and 5 are also strong contenders. For #4, don’t ferns have high concentrations of arsenic and other heavy metals?
Not to get off-topic, but I also hope this book encourages responsible foraging (i.e. not harvesting native plants on public lands, or at least not encouraging removal of whole plants!).
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Absolutely! That is the key. We all need to forage responsibly!
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1 looks the most informative, and it’s what I would choose for identification purposes. Clear and to the point. 3 looks like a cookbook or an art book. 5 looks like a cookbook with better art than 3 and is what I’d choose for a recipe book. 2 has the most aesthetically pleasing cover, but I would expect a work of fiction, probably with dense prose. 4 looks like the information will be too simply presented or sparse to be of any use. So your best cover depends on the contents and what we’re supposed to expect of them. I don’t trust the contents of 2; it seems put together with an eye to being decorative.
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With this change, I might pick 5 instead of 1. Now 5 would look informative as well, as they saw fit to specify to where this information is limited.
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Hard choice between 5 and 2. The only reason I didn’t choose 2 was because of the lily, top center. I would prefer that foraging for any native lilies NOT be encouraged
thanks
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Also, please let us know when this book comes out. I know several people who want it.
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Great advice! Thanks.
Absolutely!
I agree about not foraging for lilies for two reasons.
#1. Lilium are poisonous., but Hemerocallis (Daylilies) are not. Yet many new to identifying plants confuse these completely different genuses. Not good!
#2. Even the edible Daylilies might well be rare in a given region.
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It’s an old, old problem. Euell Gibbons often commented on that in his books – he found three different sources for such-and-such, but they all looked like copies of each other; he tried it out himself and found the reality was quite different. There have always been hacks (meaning people who write just to make money), although it may be that SEO has increased their numbers lately.
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While #2 is the most popular and colorful is it the most environmentally conscious since it uses more ink? IDK, I just think about things like that.
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I would say that 3 probably uses the least ink followed by 2 because the others have tinted covers.
The art on #2 is beautiful!!! Can’t wait to see the outcome :]
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I like the look of #2 best, but think the title could be a bit more prominent: maybe a different color (dark red would contrast with the green), and/or larger font.
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Red and green are a problematic color pairing for a significant percentage of the population (myself included). If the green title’s not working for you, I’d suggest black. Hard to go wrong.