Is it just me, or is Penguin raising the bar for book cover design right now?
Inspired by the two-tone crime covers produced by Romek Marber for Penguin in the 60s, senior designer Coralie Bickford-Smith has created some remarkable designs for 10 gothic horror novels – including books by Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft and M. R. James – to be released by Penguin in their Red Classics series on October 2nd.
In this video from the Penguin Blog, Coralie discusses the genesis of the covers:
The whole set can be seen on the Penguin Blog.
I love the look of the yellow/blue offset. Also the fact that they were so hands-on to make, and weren’t just whipped up in photoshop. Nice.
I really liked that the designer used light-sensitive paper rather than photoshop too – the covers look like they have a great tactile quality.
The modern type is nice as well. It must have been really tempting to go with something ‘Gothic’…
Penguin are definitely “nailing it”!
[…] lovely book designs by the very talented Coralie Bickford-Smith at Penguin UK (mentioned here previously for her work on the Gothic Reds series) for a collection of classics available at British book […]
[…] Books award-winning book cover designer Coralie Bickford-Smith (mentioned previously here and here) discusses her experiences, influences, book cover designs, and more, in a great interview […]