Tag: david mann

Published April 19, 2019

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; 2017; 2016; 2015 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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Published April 13, 2018

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 2018)

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:

The idea that legibility is enhanced by big type is so flawed. Big type surrounded by busyness is often no more legible than small type surrounded by space. Perhaps it is the space that people are scared of. Our idiot eyes might look at the wrong part of the cover.

— David Pearson (@typeasimage) April 11, 2018

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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Published January 16, 2018

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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Published September 26, 2014

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:

The Bluesiana Snake Festival by Aubrey Bart; design by Kimberly Glyder (Counterpoint / April 2010)

The Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker; design by Coralie Bickford-Smith (Penguin / October 2008)

The Unmentionables by Bruce Norris; design by Andrew Brozyna (Northwestern University Press / April 2009)

I Haven’t Been Thinking About You At All Lately by Jacob I. Evans; design & illustration by Shannon Freshwater (2009)

The Worst Years of Your Life by ; design by Catherine Casalino (Simon & Schuster / August 2007)

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 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)

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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)

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)

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

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)

Swamplandia by Karen Russell; design by Carol Devine Carson (Knopf / February 2011)

Swamplandia by Karen Russell; design by John Gall (Vintage / July 2011)

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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Published June 2, 2014

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…
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Abroad by Katie Crouch; design by Rodrigo Corral (FSG June 2014)