Books, Design and Culture
The featured work at FaceOut Books this week is 28-year-old Ely Sarig’s elegant–and unpublished–designs for Jules Verne’s classic 19th Century science fiction novels 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (above), From the Earth to the Moon (below), and The Clipper of the Clouds . The designs draw inspiration from Victorian industrial design, pirate ships, WWII submarines and spacecraft. Does it get any better than that?
More 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 retailer, Waterstone’s:
“All the books in this series have patterns that adhere to a strict grid… I have a real enthusiasm for pattern design so I was obsessed with this project. I wanted to create sumptuous books for people to enjoy, cherish and pass on.”
Penguin have very kindly put all of the covers for the Waterstone’s Hardback Classics on their Flickr photostream. It really is a beautiful set.
Coralie recently won an award for best ‘Brand or Series Identity’ at the British Book Design and Production Awards, for her work on the Classic Boys’ Adventures series, which is brilliant too.
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Refreshing classic creative texts: Creative Review talks to Penguin’s art director Jim Stoddart about the redesigned and reissued books in the ‘Penguin on Design’ series. The books include Bruno Munari’s 1965 book, Design As Art; Marshall McLuhan’s 1967 The Medium is the Massage; John Berger’s Ways Of Seeing from 1972; and Susan Sontag’s 1977 essay, On Photography.
I do like these covers — Susan Sontag’s On Photography (pictured) is particularly striking — but, again, what is with all the white? Surely someone at Penguin has worked in a bookshop. I mean these are clearly meant to be looked at and not touched.
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