Skip to content

Tag: jacob covey

Book Covers of Note June 2016

Something of a bumper post this month, with lots of black and white covers for some reason. Perhaps it’s a thing…?

Addlands design Jenny Grigg
Addlands by Tom Bullough; design by Jenny Grigg (Granta / June 2016)

barkskins-design Jaya Miceli
Barkskins by Annie Proulx; design Jaya Miceli (Scribner / June 2016)

The cover of the UK edition (Fourth Estate / June 2016), designed by Anna Morrison, is an interesting contrast:
Barkskins design by Anna Morrison

Boy-s Own Story design Ami Smithson
A Boys Own Story by Edmund White; design by Ami Smithson (Picador / June 2016)

9780399184123
But What If We’re Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman; design by Paul Sahre (Blue Rider Press / June 2016)

TheChaplinMachine
The Chaplin Machine by Owen Hatherley; design by David Pearson (Pluto Press / June 2016)

Crow-Girl design Mendelsund and Munday
The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund; design by Peter Mendelsund & Oliver Munday (Knopf / June 2016)

death confetti design Jacob Covey
Death Confetti by Jennifer Robin; design by Jacob Covey (Feral House / June 2016)

Essex Serpent design Peter Dyer
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry; design Peter Dyer (Serpent’s Tail / June 2016)

Fen design by Suzanne Dean
Fen by Daisy Johnson; design Suzanne Dean (Vintage / June 2016)


The Girls by Emma Cline; design Peter Mendelsund; lettering by Jenny Pouech (Random House / June 2016)

The cover of the UK edition (Chatto & Windus / June 2016), which makes intriguing use of ITC Avant Garde Gothic,1 was designed by Suzanne Dean:

girls UK

Goldfish_fc
Goldfish JKT_final

Goldfish by Nat Luurtsema; design by Anna Booth (Feiwel & Friends / June 2016)

(This has a fancy spot gloss that makes the school of fish appear to shimmer)

How to Ruin Everything design Ben Denzer
How to Ruin Everything by George Watsky; design by Ben Denzer (Penguin / June 2016)

Human Acts design Tom Darracott
Human Acts by Han Kang; design by Tom Darracott (Portobello Books / January 2016)

Infomocracy design Will Staehle
Infomocracy by Malka Older; design by Will Staehle (Tor Books / June 2016)

ink and bone design Ervin Serrano
Ink and Bone by Lisa Unger; design by Ervin Serrano (Touchstone / June 2016)

In the Dark in the Woods design Kate Gaughran
In the Dark in the Woods by Eliza Wass; design by Kate Gaughran (Quercus / April 2016)

Is That Kafka design Erik Carter
Is That Kafka? 99 Finds by Reiner Stach; design by Erik Carter (New Directions / April 2016)

Invincible Summer design Justine Anweiler
Invincible Summer by Alice Adams; design by Justine Anweiler (Picador / June 2016)

Lost Time Accidents design Pete Adlington
The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray; design by Peter Adlington (Canongate / June 2016)

The cover of the US edition (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / February 2016), designed by Janet Hansen, is another fascinating contrast:
Lost Time Accidents design Janet Hansen

The Muse cover art Lisa Perrin
The Muse by Jessie Burton; design by Ami Smithson, cover art by Lisa Perrin (Picador / June 2016)

Print
Naked Diplomacy by Tom Fletcher; cover design by Jonathan Pelham (William Collins / June 2016)

Nitro Mountain design Oliver Munday
Nitro Mountain by Lee Clay Johnson; design by Oliver Munday (Knopf / May 2016)

The Panama Papers_9781786070470
The Panama Papers by Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier; design by James Paul Jones (Oneworld / June 2016)

Rasputin design Ed Kluz
Rasputin and Other Ironies by Teffi; design by Eleanor Crow; cover art by Ed Kluz (Pushkin Press / May 2016)

Scar design CS Neal
Scar by J. Albert Mann; design by Christopher Silas Neal (Calkins Creek / April 2016)

sex object design by Lynn Buckley
Sex Object by Jessica Valenti; design by Lynn Buckley (Dey Street / June 2016)

White Sands design Pete Adlington
White Sands by Geoff Dyer; design by Peter Adlington (Canongate / June 2016)

 

6 Comments

Emory Liu on Design at Fantagraphics

cannon-wallace-wood-design-emory-liu

At Sequart, designer Emory Liu talks about working at Seattle comics publisher Fantagraphics:

My first start in the design world came through designing / screen printing posters, and doing album artwork for bands. I played in a bunch of bands, and starting out, we just ended up having to do a lot of the work ourselves, art included.  I also took design classes at School of Visual Concepts, eventually graduating with an Interdisciplinary Visual Arts degree from University of Washington in 2005. I feel very fortunate to be hired by Fantagraphics, as I had no previous experience designing full books, but just came from a job that heavily depended on InDesign. I think I just had enough experience to pass, and a DIY aesthetic that fit with the other designers… [It’s] interesting, because most of the time we have a ton of creative control. Editorial is usually hands off, and we’re working from scratch, keeping in mind not to overstep the comic artist themselves. A lot of the work is old work being re-released, and just the repackaging of the product with new covers can do wonders, give the book new life. At the same time we’ll get a few titles where we get very little input. Some artists demand complete control, and I’d take the role of facilitator more than designer. As fast as I’d like to get through those, they always end up taking the longest.

Comments closed

Beasts!

beasts
Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my! I’m kicking off a new series today on animal book covers. The first post is on ‘beasts’ — mostly ‘wild’ beasts, but one or two more domesticated (and dead) animals may have nosed their way in. Other posts series will look at birds, bugs, reptiles and amphibians, and quite possibly sea creatures and farm animals (unless someone pays me a large amount of money to stop before that). Thanks to all the designers, ADs, publicists and others who have been helping me with images and credits. If you notice that some information about a cover is missing, please let me know.

KENNEDY_American-gabrielle-bordwin
American Spirit by Dan Kennedy; design by Gabrielle Bordwin (New Harvest / May 2013)

animals-of-my-own-kind-drummond
Animals of My Own Kind by Harry Thurston; design by David Drummond (Vehicule Press / April 2010)

Untitled
Annabel by Kathleen Winter; design by Bill Douglas (Anansi / June 2010)

beasts-jacob-covey
Beasts! by Jacob Covey; design by Jacob Covey / Unflown (Fantagraphics / February 2007)

bedside-book-of-beasts-richardson
The Bedside Book of Beasts by Graeme Gibson; design by Scott Richardson (Doubleday Canada / October 2009)

brothers-beasts
Brothers & Beasts edited Kate Bernheimer; design by Isaac Tobin; illustration by Lauren Nassef (Wayne State University Press / January 2008)

9780374119027
Caribou by Charles Wright; design by Jeff Clark / Quemadura (FSG / March 2014)


Charm and Strange by Stephanie Kuehn; design by Sharon King-Chai (Electric Monkey / June 2013)

chronic city
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem; design by Miriam Rosenbloom (Faber & Faber / December 2009)

Company-of-Liars
Company of Liars by Karen Maitland; design by gray318 (Penguin / January 2008)

9781770893009_HR
Doppler by Erlend Loe; design by Nicolas Cheetham (Anansi / October 2012)

eeeee-kelly-blair
Eeeee Eee Eeee by Tao Lin; design by Kelly Blair (Melville House / April 2007)

ExtinctionClub
The Extinction Club by Jeffrey Moore; design by Michel Vrana (Hamish Hamilton Canada / April 2010)

feral
Feral by George Monbiot; design by Jim Stoddart (Penguin / May 2013)


The Good Suicides by Antonio Hill; design by Christopher Brand (Crown / June 2014)


Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia by Mariusz Szczygiel; design by Christopher King (Melville House / May 2014)

Penguin-Goya-Hi_res
Goya’s Dog by Damian Tarnopolsky; design by David Gee (Penguin Canada / August 2007)

Hope A Tragedy
Hope A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander; design by John Gall (Riverhead Books / January 2012)

baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle; design by Emily Mahon; illustration by SHOUT (Modern Library / October 2002)

9780141034324
Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle; design by Coralie Bickford-Smith; illustration by Despotica (Penguin / March 2008)

JOYLAND-Haunt-Hi_res
How I Came to Haunt My Parents by Natalee Caple; design by David Gee (ECW / May 2011)

hunger
Hunger by Lincoln Townley; design by Matt Johnson (Simon & Schuster / May 2014)

jaguars-eels
Jaguars and Electric Eels by Alexander Von Humboldt; design by David Pearson; illustration by Victoria Sawdon (Penguin / February 2007)

Knife Throwing Through Self-Hypnosis
Knife Throwing Through Self-Hypnosis by Robin Richardson; design by Natalie Olsen / Kisscut Design (ECW / September 2013)

jamrachs-menagerie
Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch; design by gray318 (Canongate / March 2011)

jungle-book
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling; design by Alice Stevenson (Penguin India / 2014)

leopard
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa; illustration by Hans Tillman (Vintage / September 2007)

TEARSoftheGIRAFFE_B2
Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith; design by Mark Ecob (Abacus / August 2003)

me-and-the-devil
Me and the Devil by Nick Tosches; design by Keith Hayes (Little Brown & Co / December 2012)

9781594488078B
Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi design by Helen Yentus with Jason Booher (Riverhead / September 2011)

978-0-7710-0833-7
Morning in the Burned House by Margaret Atwood; design by Kelly Hill (McClelland & Stewart / September 2009)

natural-acts-fulbrook
Natural Acts by David Quammen; design by John Fulbrook III (W. W. Norton / May 2009)

9780865477735
The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane; design by Charlotte Strick; illustration by Ariana Nehmad Ross (Faber & Faber / October 2013)

Layout 1
Off Course by Michelle Huneven; design by Rodrigo Corral; photograph by Gregori Maiofis (FSG / March 2014)

orphan-master
The Orphan Masters Son by Adam Johnson; design by Lynn Buckley (Random House / January 2012)

panther
Panther by David Owen; design by gray318 (Constable and Robinson / May 2015)

pastoralia-rodrigo-corral
Pastoralia by George Saunders; design by Rodrigo Corral (Riverhead / June 2001)


The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson; design by Matt Dorfman (Riverhead / December 2011)

sharp-teeth-dean
Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow; design by Susan Dean; illustration Natasha Michaels (William Heinemann / August 2007)

short-history-bill-douglas
A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright; design by Bill Douglas (Anansi / October 2004)

9781447268963
Station Eleven by Emily  St. John Mandel; design by Nathan Burton (Picador / September 2014)

stories-ii
Stories II by T. C. Boyle; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury / October 2013)

tattooed-soldier
The Tattooed Soldier by Hector Tobar; design by Jim Tierney (Picador / October 2014)

tell-the-wolves
Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt; Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich (Dial Press / June 2012)

this-book
This Book Will Save Your Life by A. M. Homes; design by Paul Buckley (Penguin / April 2007)

Tiger-in-Eden
Tigers in Eden by Chris Flynn; design by W.H. Chong (Text Publishing Co. / October 2013)

The Tiger's Wife-Tea Obreht
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht; design by James Paul Jones; illustration Wuon Gean Ho (Phoenix / March 2011)

3796386738_ef71a142a3_o
Tooth and Claw by T. C. Boyle; design by Paul Buckley (Penguin / September 2005)


The Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland; design by Keith Hayes (Algonquin Books / May 2014)

9780143125020
The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma; design by Alison Forner (Penguin / March 2014)

Wolves-tpb
Wolves by Simon Ings; design and Illustration by Jeffrey Alan Love (Gollancz / January 2014)

7 Comments

Kern Your Enthusiasm

Thanks to Jacob Covey for kindly pointing me in the direction Kern Your Enthusiasm, a new series of short posts at HiLobrow about typefaces.

Matthew Battles, author of Library: An Unquiet History (and co-founder of HiLobrow), kicked off the series on Friday with a fascinating post about Aldine Italic:

Aldus Manutius was a printer in sixteenth-century Venice, and he was looking to shake things up. The roman typefaces, based on manuscript letterforms the humanists thought dated back to Roman times (but which were in fact medieval in origin) had offered Italian counterpoint to the black-letter typefaces of the first German printers, but already they were old hat. When Aldus put the first version of a typeface we call italic to use in 1501, the printing press had been proliferating in Europe for half a century. In other words, it was about as old as the computer is now. It was a time of immense invention and swiftly spun variety in the printed book, and a time of new mobility and independence of thought and activity among certain classes of people as well — and the combination of new ways and new tools meant new kinds of books. Crucially, the book was getting smaller, small enough to act not only as a desktop, but as a mobile device.

There is also a rather lovely short piece by Mark Kingwell, posted today, on Gill Sans.

Jacob himself has contributed a post, scheduled to appear at the end of the series, about Gotham. Can’t wait.

Comments closed

Jacob Covey: Pirates in the Heartland

pirates-in-the-heartland

Designer Jacob Covey recently posted a short essay on his personal Facebook page about his cover design for Pirates in the Heartland, the first volume of Patrick Rosenkranz’s biography of underground cartoonist S. Clay Wilson. I asked Jacob if I could repost it in its entirety here, but the book’s publisher Fantagraphics had beaten me to it. While you can read the whole piece on their blog, here’s a short excerpt:

In publishing, one has to approach a cover with the information of an expert and the ignorance of a browser. In biographies, a photo of the subject is generally employed for good reason: The viewer immediately knows this is a book about a person. (Hence the trend in fiction of generally cropping off the heads of models or having them looking away — this is not about THEM.) But Wilson is recognizable only by his artwork, so a photo alone isn’t enough information. Ultimately, my solution is a kind of psychedelia but a practical one: Pirate art (a favorite theme of Wilson) overlaying a mythic portrait of young Wilson. Creation and creator in color overlays that force your eye to try to unhook one from the other.

I generally consider it a failure when cover design requires a band of color upon which to set the type. In this case, it allowed for the art to be the primary feature, to be a bit uncontrolled, while the type treatment is an anchor that harkens classic album design. This kind of visual messaging is trying to align Wilson with rebels and rockstars without making false promises. The trickiest part was simply finding Wilson art that had ANY white space so his portrait could connect with the viewer. The dual function of his artwork blowing the brains out, simultaneously, of Wilson and another of Wilson’s creation was too wonderful to pass up but I’m going to leave the symbology of such things to the viewer.

 

Comments closed

New Book Covers by Jacob Covey and Others

 Laura Warholic by Alexander Theroux; design by Jacob Covey

In Case We Die by Danny Bland; design by Jacob Covey

The Devil’s Workshop by Jáchym Topol; translated by Alex Zucker; Design by Telegramme Studio

 Scatter, Adapt, and Remember by Annalee Newitz; design by Emily Mahon, illustration by Neil Webb

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; Design by Abby Weintraub

Comments closed

Nancy and the Messy Shelves

Who doesn’t like tidy shelves?

I do have a strange and peculiar love of Ernie Bushmiller’s ‘Nancy’ comic strips, especially when odd panels are taken out of context, but Fantagraphics are doing a great job of collecting them properly into books (designed by Jacob Covey). Two volumes — Nancy is Happy and Nancy Likes Christmas — are currently available, with surely more to come (?).

(via Nancy Is Happy)

Comments closed

Something for the Weekend

Jacob Covey’s stunning cover for Nancy Is Happy: Complete Dailies 1943-1945 due in March 2012 from Fantagraphics.

Anxiety and Time — Adam Roberts, author of By Light Alone, on science fiction at The Browser:

The common belief that SF is in some sense “about” the future isn’t wholly wrongheaded. One feature of 19th and 20th century science fiction is that it is fascinated with time in a deep way. Time only opens up, as a wholly new dimension to be imaginatively explored, at the very end of the 18th century. It’s a puzzle, actually, why this should be. [The critic] Darko Suvin thinks it has something to do with the French Revolution. But before about 1800 people almost never wrote stories set in the future, and then after 1800 lots of people did just that. SF as a mode of projecting oneself into the to-come connects powerfully with human concerns in the way that specific prophesy – pedantic, fiddly, bound to be wrong – doesn’t.

Writing Machines — Tom McCarthy on technology in The Guardian:

I must belong to the only generation of writers who’ve written with all three of inkpen, typewriter and computer. It definitely matters: the technology colours not only the rhythm but the whole logic of what you write. Think of Kafka’s obsession with writing machines: the harrow that inscribes the law onto the skin in In the Penal Colony or the mysterious writing desk in Amerika: writing technologies themselves are imbued with terrifying and sacred dimensions, and become the subject, not just the medium, of the story. I used to have a beautiful old German typewriter, that you had to throw your fingers at and the keys would smash into the roller. It felt like a machine-gun or something.

And finally…

Brian Appleyard on Andy Warhol for Intelligent Life magazine:

Warhol now endorses a way of life. One simple technology—silk-screen printing—dominated his career. But it was enough to show today’s technology-laden, hyper-connected youth that they could do it too. With the instant publication of digital pictures and videos, anybody can become a cyber-Warhol, swimming in the great ocean that pop imagery has become. Apple’s Photo Booth software reduces the whole thing to a single click—just by selecting “pop art” under “effects” you can change your face into a very credible Warhol multiple self-portrait. Andy, in death, is a generation’s mentor.

Comments closed

Koji Suzuki | Vertical

After watching Lauren Panepinto’s how-to video yesterday and talking with designer Jacob Covey about op-art book covers, I was reminded of Chip Kidd’s amazing designs for the Vertical editions of Koji Suzuki’s Ring books:

Vertical are apparently releasing Edge by Koji Suzuki this fall with a cover by Peter Mendelsund that sticks with the visual theme of the series:

The design is from a few years ago according to Peter (it still looks fresh to me), but clearly I should have nagged him for a better quality image rather than relying on the internet!

Update: Thanks to Peter for sending me a higher-res cover image for Edge. Beauty.

Comments closed

What Is All This?

Fantagraphics Art Director Jacob Covey‘s first foray into designing for prose fiction is this cover for a 600-page collection of short stories by Stephen Dixon, What Is All This?

Incidently, Jacob also did a nice job colouring Gilbert Hernandez‘s cover art for Kristen Hersh‘s new memoir, Rat Girl. The design is by Jaya Miceli at Penguin Books:

You can read my interview with Mr. Covey here.

I colored Gilbert Hernandez’s cover art to Kristen Hersh’s new memoir, Rat Girl. Fairly easy job but it gives me an excuse to plug the book and the design work of Jaya Miceli over at Penguin Books.

2 Comments

Q & A with Jacob Covey, Art Director Fantagraphics Books

I get excited just about every time I post an interview on The Casual Optimist (I am officially a cheap date), but it is a special thrill to post a Q & A with Jacob Covey, designer and Art Director at Fantagraphics.

Partly this is because I’m grateful that in defiance of all reason, publishing wisdom, cold, hard financial facts, bitter law suits, common sense and ‘good taste’, pioneering Seattle-based comics publisher Fantagraphics even exists.

Partly it’s an excuse (not that I really need one) to post Love + Rockets cover art.

And partly it’s because I thought there was a very real chance the interview wouldn’t happen.

But mostly it is because there is something about Jacob’s work — which combines the Chantry-esque DIY design aesthetic of skate art, gig posters, record sleeves, underground comix, zines and punk, with a Ware-like preoccupation with detail and precision — that resonates with me and fits so perfectly with Fantagraphics.

Needless to say, Jacob’s award-winning work has been featured in Print, Communication Arts and How.

We caught up over email…

How did you get into book design?

The germ of the thing started with working at the public library where I was a conspicuously slow page. I would look at every cover I was shelving, setting aside certain ones to check out and carry a few blocks away to a color photocopier. I liked having the inspiration around and I couldn’t afford to buy design books. This was around 1999, when I was beginning to study graphic design and at night was staying out late shooting photos of bands for record labels, local monthlies, and things like that. As for getting into book design professionally, in late 2003 I had just moved back to the Northwest after leaving a job in Los Angeles at a skate company. I was interviewing for a job to churn out ads at the local alternative weekly, The Stranger, and the Art Director, Joe Newton, kindly suggested that I instead talk to Gary Groth at Fantagraphics. They were looking for a new designer but apparently they were in no hurry to actually hire someone as I basically called relentlessly for six months. I think I was just the last man standing at the other end of the phone line so they hired me.

 Briefly, could you tell me about working at Fantagraphics?

If the publishing industry is a zoo, then Fantagraphics is the monkey house. It’s not a conventional workplace and you could get tetanus from walking barefoot but it’s a place where everyone is laboring out of love and there’s a lot of receptivity to trying new things and having your ideas heard. Much more so than I think is possible at most publishers. I have immense respect for the history of the company as an archivist of great work and I have the opportunity to deal with our publishing decisions on a regular basis. It’s satisfying in that way– but the office itself is a neglected three story house with 30 years of dusty artwork, ancient paste-ups, and discarded razor blades strewn about. So it’s not for everyone.

As for the work, Fantagraphics publishes the great cartoonists from Charles Schulz to R. Crumb, but as often as not I’m designing a book of paintings or a collection of pop culture artifacts or even the occasional prose novel.

You’re also a freelance designer. How is that different from your role as art director at Fanta

For one thing I’ve established myself with Fantagraphics enough that I know the material well and have to explain my decisions less. They’re very supportive and because of that I am mostly pushing myself to do better work. With my freelance clients there’s a lot more to learn from their needs and the process involves more time spent on researching and exploring ideas. The freelance work is also much more varied subject matter. For example, as I type this I’m working on the branding for a 2011 museum exhibition focusing on the band Nirvana, a non-fiction book cover for HarperCollins, a band t-shirt design, an AIGA event poster, and a book layout for a start-up imprint in the UK. There are a lot of other publishers I’d like to work with but I’m a pretty shoddy self-promoter.

 

Could you describe your design process?

In the case of Fantagraphics, I hate to say that most of the time there are so many projects on my plate that I’m just cranking the books out, trying to trust my instincts and learning from any mistakes. We have a list of about 50 books a year with only me and one other designer, Adam Grano, along with our works-through-the-night production guy, Paul Baresh, scanning and laying out everything from the books to the ads and supplying media requests — if we get behind schedule we rarely hire out for another designer, the book simply gets published late. So there’s a lot of pressure to just keep moving. The job requires a lot of discipline to approach books with an eye on getting them approved by the editor/artist without delays and yet still make them interesting. There is process but it’s very accelerated and it’s not unusual that I have to go with my first impulse for a book design and wish I had time to do a dozen more comps.

 

Is designing for reprint collections different than designing for new material?

Notably, the job description of a cartoonist and a graphic designer are similar in that they both work with text and images but the truth is very few cartoonists have a very developed design sense (just as my cartooning skills are sub par). Working with individual artists on original material can be a really rewarding collaboration or a Sisyphean attempt to improve an idea that the artist is married to. So, in truth, the deader the artist, the easier my job — reprint collections have a more dispassionate approval process.

What are your favourite books to work on?

I’m not sure that there’s any type of book that’s my favorite to work on but I’ve become very comfortable with the process that goes into art books in general. I just finished working on a very collaborative book of VHS box art with the collector/editor Jacques Boyreau and I enjoyed that. The subject matter itself isn’t necessarily what’s interesting to me but there was a long process of sitting with Jacques early on and determining the best way to showcase the work, which ended up being very austere, spotlighting the actual physical history of the boxes and conjuring the experience of seeing them in their element by retaining the old, beaten up boxes, plastered in rental stickers. Some of these boxes we had to prop back together from having been chopped up for those large plastic cases that were used in videostores. In the end, there was more of an anthropological story to looking at the boxes themselves rather than just the art that was on them.

This doesn’t work for every project but it’s great for receptive, collaborative editors. It’s fun to step into someone else’s fixation and figure out how to present the material more evocatively, in a way that will pull other people into what the editor loves about the subject. To design in a way other than plop-plop-plop, here are the images and some nice captions. Then I finish that book and it’s my job to find out and communicate what’s exciting about the next one.

How much say do the artists involved have in the design of their books?

Assuming the artists are involved in a given project, they generally have all the say they want. Fantagraphics publishes The Best and we have to respect the artists’ wishes and peccadilloes. They’re visual people so we usually end up with a good package, if not always a great one.

How are final cover decisions made at Fanta?

On a lot of projects I get more say than is customary for the Art Director but it ultimately rests on the in-house editor of the project and the outside artist or editor whose book it is. We all hash out our opinions about what works for the material and the market but we don’t really have scheduled meetings to sit down and scrutinize. Again, it’s all pretty swift moving.

Who else do you think is doing interesting work right now?

Honestly I can’t seem to go on the web without being intimidated by all the talent that’s out there. I couldn’t list all the people. By far, the designer who most consistently floors me is Peter Mendelsund. The man works brilliantly in every genre thrown at him. I also have to say how happy I am that the Design Works Group guys are in nearby Oregon. I don’t know any other book designers here in Seattle so it’s great to have them around, making a good name for the Northwest.

Where do you look for inspiration and who are some of your design heroes?

I’m a cliché: Inspiration is wherever it turns up.

Art Chantry has been really important throughout my development and is someone whose talent and vision I admire a great deal. I think his influence shows up the most in my work, though not necessarily in the most obvious ways. Chantry, Lester Beall and the Constructivists were my heroes when I used to proclaim design heroes. I would definitely add Mendelsund and Paul Sahre to my contemporary list.

Of course you can’t work in comic book design without acknowledging the significance of two of the world’s most important contemporary designers, Chip Kidd and Chris Ware. They made it possible for me to do a lot of what I do with Fantagraphics.

Could you tell me a little about your personal project Beasts! ?

Beasts! is a classical bestiary of mythological creatures as depicted by some of my favorite contemporary artists from the worlds of comics, skate graphics, rock posters, children’s book illustration, the fine art world, et cetera. The first book is now in its fourth printing and the second and final volume came out in early 2009. Each book has ninety artists and four writers involved. I call myself the curator of the project as it’s more like an art exhibit than a standard art book. I wrote up brief descriptions based on my research of creatures, then the artists chose the creature that was most interesting to them and the writers would pen proper text based on historical references to the creatures. It’s a lot more serious than people seem to expect. I like these stories, I like that these creatures existed to someone who told the original story, and it was great to see them given form — a lot of the beasts are very obscure and before I got art from an artist there usually wasn’t any depiction to be found for a beast. There are also interviews with respectable experts like the marine biologist, artist, and writer Richard Ellis as well as contemporary eyewitnesses to some mysterious beasts.

Did you design the Beast! books as well as edit them?

Yes, except the Chinese edition that just came out. The publisher translated and totally repackaged it for that market. It was part of my intent with Beasts! to see what could come of a close working relationship between the editor and the designer on a book project. (Obviously I took that to the extreme by performing both roles.) Books are generally fairly linear, straight-forward affairs or sometimes they’re eccentric art books that end up feeling like design masturbation. I’m interested in what can happen somewhere in between these things that will engage the reader to enjoy multiple readings or even to just feel like more of a participant in the whole experience. There are a lot of interesting details that never make it into books simply because the designer isn’t involved with the editorial side or is otherwise not involved on a collaborative level.

What does the future hold for book cover design?

Everyone’s got an opinion on that and my voice would just be din. It’s hard to say if it’s like the film world facing VCRs or the music world facing MP3s but it’s not bleak to me.

Thanks Jacob!

You can find more of Jacob’s work on his website.

UPDATE: Jacob was kind enough to send me a few more images to accompany the interview and these have now been added to the original post.

8 Comments