At the Toronto launch of John Freeman’s new anthology last night — encouragingly called ’10 Reasons to Not Shoot Yourself in the Face Over the State of Literature’ — Literary Hub‘s Jonny Diamond mentioned design as a reason to be optimistic about current state of publishing. In particular, Jonny called out the book covers of Deep Vellum, a Dallas-based literary non-profit that publishes literature in translation.1 The covers, designed by Anna Zylicz, are strange, minimal, and instantly recognizable. There’s something of a hard-edged Peter Saville feel to them. I especially like the cover for Sphinx by Anne Garréta. Anna Zylicz is clearly a designer to watch.
