Investigation of Form and Content in Designing Covers of Specialized Psychology Books Published in Iran from 2008 to 2018

The present article statistically investigates and analyzes the form and content of the cover of specialized psychology books published in Iran from 2008 to 2018. For this, this study provides a detailed investigation of five sample covers from each year in terms of styles, form, etc. Although the statistics obtained can be evaluated from a sociological and economic point of view, this article, considering the scope of the definition, also gives tables and statistical charts and provides the results from a visual perspective. The results reveal that tittles of most of the books are written horizontally on the upper-half left side of the cover using common computer fonts. Designers have mainly focused on the legibility of the book when providing titles for the books. Almost in all cases, the names of the work’s author and the translator are written in very smaller fonts under the title. However, if the author of the work is a renowned one, its name is written in larger fonts above the title. The main image inserted on the cover (including the design or photo) is, in most cases, located in the center of the cover so that it would appeal to the user at the first encounter. In popular books, light, warm, diverse and pure colors tend to be used, while colors used in specialized books tend to be dark, cold, and mixed. In books with education, family, and youth subjects, photography techniques with human subjects and colors of green and blue spectrums have been significantly used, conceptually conforming with the subjects. In books with subjects of stress and anxiety, red and black colors of oblique combination tend to be greatly used.