Johnny Staccato wrote:
WOW! Those covers are so...boring! What happened?! I guess they were too cheap too hire a graphics artist... image
Well, I'm guessing these are the British covers. They tend to lean toward clean and minimal compared to the more illustrative US approach. That approach can be pretty cool, but it takes someone who really knows how to get more with less to pull it off. These just look weak.

Not to defend the designer, but I've been on enough projects where simple, and clean were asked for, then I was slowly forced to bring more elements in by my clients until we had the worst of both worlds and nothing was working anymore. Design by committee is the fear of all graphic artists.