Skip to content

Tag: 4th Estate

J.G. Ballard Series by Stanley Donwood

jgballard-bookcover-4thestate-theatrocityexhibition-harikunzru

Some how I missed these when they were first published in 2014,1 but British publisher Fourth Estate has reissued 21 books by J.G. Ballard with covers designed Stanley Donwood. Donwood, who is perhaps best known for his artwork for Radiohead, talked about Ballard and the cover designs on the 4th Estate blog:

I have done many strange things in order to design these covers; I’ve visited underground laboratories, watched the huge sky under the Fens, ignited flammable liquids, fired guns, melted quantities of wax, poured liquid nitrogen across a table and taken deliveries of hypodermic needles.

(via Rhys Tranter)

2 Comments

Tim O’Brien Series Design by Jo Walker

Tim OBrien series

As I mentioned on Twitter yesterday, designer Jo Walker recently redesigned the covers of Tim O’Brien’s classic Vietnam war novels If I Die in a Combat Zone, Going After Cacciato, The Things they Carried, and Northern Lights for 4th Estate in the UK. The series uses a single, searing photograph of a burning Vietnam village taken in 1965 by photographer Dominique Berretty spread over the four covers. The effect is extraordinary, and the design is an interesting contrast to Cardon Webb‘s (also brilliant) typographic covers for the US editions, published by Broadway.

You can read more about Jo’s design process for the series on the 4th Estate blog.

Northern Lights
If I Die in a Combat Zone
The Things They Carried
Going After Cacciato

Comments closed

Midweek Miscellany, April 22nd, 2009

Blue Prints for a World Revolution — seen at the Antiquarian Bookshop 108 Buddhas, which has an amazing collection of avant-garde journals and books from Japan and Eastern Europe  in their gallery section (via Michelle McCormick’s Inspiration Resource ).

12 Steps to Better Book Publishing — Good stuff from Jonathan Karp, publisher and editor-in-chief of Twelve Books in Publishers Weekly:

It seems likely that the influence and cultural centrality of major publishers, as well as other producers of information and entertainment, will diminish as digital technology enables more and more people to create and share their work. This is exactly why publishers must distinguish themselves by doing better what they’ve always done best: champion books that offer carefully conceived context, style and authority.

The State of the IndustryNeil Nyren, senior VP, publisher and editor in chief of G.P. Putnam’s Sons talks to author  J.T. Ellison at Murderati (via @sarahw).

Poetic Interiors — Some lovely typography for Arrays of Conscious by Chanson Duvall at Beyond the Covers.

Embracing Change — Victoria Barnsley, chief executive and publisher at HarperCollins UK,  profiled in The Guardian:

There are still concerns about the digital future, such as how to continue making money. “There are some very big questions that we still have to answer – the biggest one being value,” says Barnsley. “How to make sure that consumers are going to be prepared to pay for digital content, because a lot of them are getting quite used to getting it for free?”

And yet…

Why newspapers can’t charge for online content — Dan Kennedy elsewhere in The Guardian:

I have no philosophical objection to the idea that news organizations ought to be able to charge for their online content. The problem is that it’s highly unlikely to work – mainly because there are too many sources of free, high-quality news with which they’re competing.

Font of Ill Will — Vincent Connare, designer of Comic Sans, profiled at the WSJ:

The font, a casual script designed to look like comic-book lettering, is the bane of graphic designers, other aesthetes and Internet geeks. It is a punch line: “Comic Sans walks into a bar, bartender says, ‘We don’t serve your type.'”

And finally…

Soldiers of Lead — An introduction to layout and typography for use in the Labour Party  (via Design Observer).

Comments closed

This Is Where We Live

This Is Where We Live is a wonderfully rich stop-animation video celebrating the 25th anniversary of HarperCollins imprint 4th Estate. The entire video is made from books–or parts of books–published by 4th Estate:


This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

A high-definition version of the film (recommended), production stills, and other behind the scenes footage, can be found at the special ’25th Estate’ website. Apt Studio’s Times Emit blog also has details about their involvement in the project.

Link

Comments closed