The designs focusing on the "Big Brother is watching you" principal are typical of Nineteen Eighty-four, but fail to convey the significance of being watched, namely absolute control – even the restriction from free-thinking is ignored in these designs. The eyes, especially those focused on the reader, do provide an impression of being kept under surveillance but cannot access the magnitude of it.

The full-colour illustrated covers of the 60s reprints more accurately captures the importance of being watched and adds a sense of importance to the very human, albeit contrived, relationship between Winston and Julia. The idea that an intimate relationship renders them terrorists and thus fugitives is more accurately conveyed in these covers. The illustrations, however, are too obvious to be an inside joke between the reader and the book and create, perhaps wrongly, expectations of "forbidden love" (see below).

This (supposedly Heinemann but most likely unpublished) cover featuring a barcode-like design beautifully captures the book's objectification themes. The reduction of a person to the status of "an unperson" is expressed in the label of a barcode and intensified by the greying of Orwell's name, which not only undermines identity but also lessens the severity of changing the meaning of words on the back page. The drawline on the front-cover however ruins the effect (as does the logo and colour) – 'Forbidden Love....Fear....Betrayal' is a generic expression for a unique novel.

The covers focusing on the propaganda and the changing of words' meanings is one of my favourite themes in the book and underscores the control of language over thinking. The striking white on black with insignificant title and author name of the first cover emphasises the sinister nature of language. The red and beige cover is genius too. The anarchy inherent in the hand written language of the back cover – an inversion of the colours on the front cover – captures Winston's protest of BB through his language. The repetition of the phrase "Down with Big Brother" ironically makes use of the same rhetoric devices to gain control as Big Brother, namely repetition of ideas. The order inherent in the structure of the piping on the front cover breaks down with the language on the back.

The Jasper Higgs cover is perhaps my favourite. The calculated logic of the inverted numbers and words is confusing in the same way that the books propaganda ("War is Peace") is convoluted at first glance but also logical. The inverted letters 'o' and 'g' in the centre of the confusion also indicates the sinister nature of language. While we can read ''Eighty' and 'four' to understand the words' face-value meaning, the spelling shows that the face-value has been altered, like the meaning of "Freedom" in the notion "Freedom is slavery".

While the audio book's cover almost completely misses the plot by portraying BB as a man and not the undefeatable idea, it has a rat on the cover which is awesome.