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Tag: david mann

ABCD Award Winners 2019

The winners of the 2019 Academy of British Cover Design (ABCD) Awards were announced earlier this month and, as in previous years, the winners are an eclectic mix of styles. It is always interesting to see the covers that the designers themselves vote for. Only a couple of the winning designs have been featured here before. 

Young Adult


Run, Riot by Nikesh Shukla; design by Michelle Brackenborough (Hodder Children’s Books / June 2018)

Sci-fi/Fantasy


Folk by Zoe Gilbert; design by David Mann (Bloomsbury / July 2018)

Non-fiction


Money by Laura Whateley; design by Jack Smyth (Fourth Estate / October 2018)

Series Design

Miriam Toews; design Jonathan Pelham (Faber & Faber / September 2018)

Classics/Reissue


Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier; design by Hannah Wood; embroidery by Hand & Lock (Virago / February 2018)

Children’s 0-5


Helping Hen by Claudia Ripol and Yeonju Yang; design and illustration by Claudia Ripol and Yeonju Yang (Owl and Dog  Books / November 2018)

Children’s 6-12


The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q. Rauf; design by Thy Bui; illustration by Pippa Curnick  (Orion Children’s Books / July 2018)

Literary Fiction


Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata; design by Luke Bird (Portobello Books / July 2018)

Crime/Thriller


That Old Black Magic by Cathi Unsworth; design by Leo Nickolls (Serpents Tail / March 2018)

Mass Market


When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri; design by Sinem Erkas (Piaktus Books / June 2018)

You can find my previous posts on the ABCD Award winners here: 2018; 201720162015 and 2014.

And while we’re on the subject of awards, the Australian Book Design Association have announced the shortlist for this year’s awards.

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Book Covers of Note April 2018

Here are April’s cover selections. Lots of very big type this month! 


Black Swans by Eve Babitz; design by Kelly Winton (Counterpoint / April 2017)

This goes rather nicely with last year’s cover for Babitz’s novel Sex and Rage also designed by Kelly:


Brass by Xhenet Aliu; design by design Keith Hayes; photography by Nadine Rovner (Random House / January 2018)

Photographic covers have fallen out of favour for literary fiction of late, but I think this works beautifully.

I also like how it echoes Nathan Putens‘ earlier cover design for Aliu’s short stories Domesticated Wild Things, which makes use of a photograph by Helen Levitt.

The other interesting thing about the photograph selection is how much it reminds me of Keith Hayes own photography. You can follow him on Instagram.


Circe by Madeline Miller; design by Will Staehle (Little Brown & Co / April 2018)

The cover of Miller’s previous book The Song of Achilles was designed by Allison Saltzman:

The very pretty cover of the UK edition of Circe was designed by David Mann at Bloomsbury:


Death in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda; design by Chris Bentham (Viking / April 2018)


Dictator Literature by Daniel Kalder; design by James Paul Jones (Oneworld / April 2018)


The Earth Does Not Get Fat by Julia Prendergast; design by Alissa Dinallo (UWA Publishing / April 2018)


The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer; design by Ben Denzer (Riverheard Books / April 2018)

I like how the design for The Female Persuasion has bands of colour similar to those on Lynn Buckley’s cover design for The Interestings, but uses them in a completely different way

 


Hello It Doesn’t Matter by Derrick C. Brown; design by Zoe Norvell (Write Bloody / April 2018)


My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci; design by Anna Morrison (Pushkin Press / April 2018)

Oliver Munday‘s cover for My Cat Yugoslavia (published by Pantheon) featured in my May 2017 post:


Patient X by David Peace; design by Luke Bird (Faber & Faber / April 2018)

And on the subject of David Peace, Steve Panton has designed new covers for the Red Riding Quartet (1974, 1977, 1980 and 1983) published by Serpent’s Tail this month:


A River in Darkness by Masaji Ishikawa; design by Rachel Adam Rogers (AmazonCrossing / January 2018)


Sit How You Want by Robin Richardson; design by David Drummond (Signal Editions / April 2018)


Space Odyssey by Michael Benson; design by Rodrigo Corral (Simon & Schuster / April 2018)

Funnily enough, I was just discussing the prevalence of big and centred white sans serif type on contemporary book covers on Twitter. While it’s common (see the covers of The Female Persuasion and Hello, It Doesn’t Matter above!), it’s also effective when it’s done well. That said I did think that David Pearson — a designer well known for his typographic covers — made a good general point about big type:

In any case, if you are interested in seeing more examples of the ‘big white type’ phenomenon, I started a pinboard a while back. 


Waiting for Tomorrow by Nathacha Appanah; design by Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / April 2018)


West by Carys Davies; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Scribner / April 2018)


The Wolf by Leo Carew; design by Patrick Insole (Wildfire / April 2018)

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Book Covers of Note January 2018

I was sure that 2018 would be different from 2017, and yet here we are… Happy New Year! 


The Age of Caesar by Plutarch; translation by Pamela Mensch; design by Catherine Casalino (W.W. Norton / January 2018)


The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch; design by Rafi Romaya; illustration by Florian Schommer (Canongate / January 2018)


Bloody January by Alan Parks; design by Chris Gale (Canongate / December 2017)

(I’m including this partly because I spend a lot of my professional life trying to explain the difference between the cover needs of Canada/US and the UK. This is a rare genre cover that — it seems to me at least — does a decent job for both sides of the Atlantic) 


Getting Off by Erica Garza; design by Zoe Norvell (Simon & Schuster / January 2018)


The Gist of Reading by Andrew Elfenbein; design by  Anne Jordan and Mitch Goldstein (Stanford University Press / January 2018)


Green by Sam Graham-Felsen; design by June Park (Random House / January 2018)


Heart Spring Mountain by Robin MacArthur; design by Sara Wood (Ecco / January 2018)


I Am Thunder by Muhammad Khan; design by Rachel Vale (Pan Macmillan / January 2018)


The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin; design and illustration by Sandra Chiu (G.P. Putnam’s Sons / January 2018)

This cover seems rather on trend to me. It is very nicely done all the same. 

(Something about the shape and colour of the leaves on black background also reminds me of the illustrations in Jon Klassen’s picture book This Is Not My Hat). 


The Job of the Wasp by Colin Winnette; design by Michael Salu (Soft Skull Press / January 2018)


The Ministry of Nostalgia by Owen Hatherley; design by Keith Dodds (Verso / January 2017)

OK. So I’m a year late on this cover. But I saw it recently on Twitter. The cover of the hardcover edition of The Ministry of Nostalgia designed by Andy Pressman was included in my January 2016 post and my annual round-up of notable covers that year.   

Interestingly, the new cover for The Ministry of Nostalgia reminds me of Matthew Young‘s refresh of Pelican Books.

Being Ecological by Timothy Morton (Pelican / January 2018) is a recent example: 


The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce; design by Kimberly Glyder (Random House / January 2018)


Neon in Daylight by Hermione Hoby; design by Strick&Williams; photography by Marc Yankus (Catapult / January 2018)


Nice Try, Jane Sinner by Lianne Oelke; art and lettering by Colin Mercer (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / January 2018)


Peach by Emma Glass; design by David Mann (Bloomsbury / January 2018)

David’s cover was adapted for the US edition by Patti Ratchford:


A Very British Coup by Chris Mullin; design by Dan Mogford (Serpent’s Tail / 2018)


The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn; design by Elsie Lyons (William Morrow / January 2018)

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Beasts! Reptiles and Amphibians

As a Friday follow-up to Tuesday’s post on wild beasts, here’s a look at reptiles and amphibians on book covers:

alligator-bill-douglas

Alligator by Lisa Moore; design by Bill Douglas (House of Anansi Press / September 2005)

andalucian-friend
The Andalucian Friend by Alexander Söderberg; design by Ben Wiseman (Crown / May 2014)

Ashland Final
Ashland by Gil Adamson; design by David Gee (ECW / April 2011)

bitter-drink
Bitter Drink by F. G. Haghenbeck; design by David Drummond (Amazon / July 2012)


Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi; design by Helen Yentus (Riverhead / March 2014)

CanneyRow800
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck; design by Kathryn MacNaughton (Penguin / January 2012)

city-of-snakes
City of Snakes by Darren Shan; design by Catherine Casalino ( Grand Central / June 2011)

Cold Blood
Cold Blood by Richard Kerridge; design by James Paul Jones (Chatto & Windus / May 2014)

Crime
Crime by Irvine Welsh; design by Matt Broughton (Vintage / August 2009)


Fatal Eggs by Mikhail Bulgakov; design by Nathan Burton (Alma Classics / July 2014)

9780312425579
The Devil’s Horn by Michael Segell; design by Henry Sene Yee (Picador / August 2006)

frog-music
Frog Music by Emma Donoghue; design by Keith Hayes (Little Brown & C0. / April 2014)

good-angel
The Good Angel of Death by Andrey Kurkov; illustration by Pablo Amargo (Vintage / August 2010)

hard-light
The Hard Light of Day by Rod Moss; design by Sandy Cull / gogoGingko (University of Queensland Press / October 2011)

heaven
The Heaven of Animals by James Poissant; design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich (Simon & Schuster / March 2014)

david-high
In the Valley of the Kings by Terrence Holt; design by David High (W. W. Norton / September 2009)

Buchanan-Smith LLC
Life Ascending by Nick Lane; design by Buchanan-Smith LLC (W. W. Norton / June 2009)

mad-hope-ingrid-paulson
Mad Hope by Heather Birrell; design by Ingrid Paulson (Coach House Books  / April 2012)

NO1LADIES
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith; design by Mark Ecob (Abacus / June 2003)

9781770893740_HR
No Pain Like This Body by Harold Sonny Ladoo; design by Brian Morgan; illustration Jillian Tamaki (Anansi / September 2013)

paradise
Paradise Lost by John Milton;  design by Emily Mahon; illustration by Silja Goetz (Modern Library / November 2008)

dead-frog-tierney
Poking a Dead Frog by Mike Sacks; design by Jim Tierney (Penguin / June 2014)

sixth-extinction
The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert; design by David Mann (Bloomsbury / February 2014)

snake-charmer
The Snake Charmer by Jamie James; design by Paul Buckley (Hyperion / July 2008)


The String Diaries by Stephen Lloyd Jones; design by Keith Hayes (Mulholland Books / July 2014)

9780099555834
Swamplandia by Karen Russell; illustration by Stacey Rozich; art direction James Paul Jones (Vintage / March 2012)

Birds and Bugs are next!

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Book Covers of Note June 2014

Well, this seems to have become a regular thing doesn’t it? I have to confess that I still haven’t quite figured out exactly what covers to include in these monthly posts, only that they’re recent and I like them. It’s even harder to decide what to leave out. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this month’s selection. Leave your thoughts in the comments…
9780374100360
Abroad by Katie Crouch; design by Rodrigo Corral (FSG June 2014)

archetype
Archetype by M. D. Waters; design by Jaya Miceli (Plume June 2014)

empathy-exams
The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison; design by Tom Darracott (Granta June 2014)

Foxes-on-the-trampoline
Foxes on the Trampoline by Charlotte Boulay; design Steve Attardo (HarperCollins April 2014)

falling-out-of-time-kelly-blair
Falling Out of Time by David Grossman; design by Kelly Blair (Jonathan Cape February 2014)

9780670016785B
Half Bad by Sally Green; design by Tim Green / Faceout Studio (Viking March 2014)

Iceland-sahre
The Iceland by Sakutaro Hagiwara; design by Paul Sahre (New Directions June 2014)

lullaby
The Lullaby of Polish Girls by Dagmara Dominczyk; design by Alex Merto, photograph Eleanor Hardwick (Spiegel & Grau February 2014)

mount-london
Mount London by Tom Chivers & Martin Kratz; design by Ben Anslow (Penned in the Margins May 2014)

Outlaws
Outlaws by Javier Cercas; design by David Mann (Bloomsbury June 2014)

Nightwork
Night Work by Jáchym Topol; design by Bobby Evans / Telegramme Studio (Portobello Books May 2014)

secret-world-of-oil
The Secret World of Oil by Ken Silverstein; design by Matt Dorfman (Verso May 2014)

Sick Rose
The Sick Rose or; Disease and the Art of Medical Illustration by Richard Barnett; design by Daniel Streat / Barnbrook Studios (Thames & Hudson June 2014)

good-suicides-brand
The Good Suicides by Antonio Hill; design by Christopher Brand (Crown June 2014)

thirty-girls
Thirty Girls by Susan Minot; design by Kate Gaughran (4th Estate February 2014)

the-vacationers
The Vacationers by Emma Straub; design by Janet Hansen (Riverhead May 2014)

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