Tag: illustration

Published October 13, 2016

Book Covers of Note October 2016

Busy, busy October… here are this month’s book covers of note…

Aluta by Adwoa Badoe; design Michael Solomon; cover art Shonagh Rae (Groundwood / September 2016)

American Ulysses by Ronald C. White; design Eric White; photograph © Colorized History, colorized by Mads Madsen (Random House / October 2016)

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The Architecture of Neoliberalism by Douglas Spencer; design Daniel Benneworth-Gray (Bloomsbury / October 2016)

The Best American Comics 2016 edited by Roz Chast; illustration by Marc Bell; design by Christopher Moisan (Mariner / October 2016)

Best American Nonrequired Reading 2016 edited by Rache Kushner; illustration and lettering by Jillian Tamaki; design by Mark Robinson (Mariner / October 2016)

The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier; design Jamie Keenan (Virago / October 2016)

Virago’s other new du Maurier reissues are also really nice:

I wrote about the series last year.

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Chance in Evolution edited by Grant Ramsey & Charles H. Pence; design by Jenny Volvovski (University of Chicago Press / October 2016)

Darktown by Thomas Mullen; design by Craig Fraser (Little, Brown / September 2016)

Another entry for the sideways covers collection (although this is not a first for Mullen’s books — the US paperback edition of The Last Town on Earth, published by Random House in 2007, also has a sideways photograph on the cover).1

Oh, and the cover of the US edition of Darktown (published by Atria in September) was designed by Laywan Kwan.

Don’t I Know You? by Marni Jackson; design by Phil Pascuzzo (Flatiron / September 2016)

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A Gambler’s Anatomy by Jonathan Lethem; design by Gray318 (Doubleday / October 2016)

Ghostland by Colin Dickey; cover art by Jon Contino (Viking / October 2016)

Himself by Jess Kidd; design by Pete Adlington (Canongate / October 2016)

How to See by David Salle; design by Peter Mendelsund (W.W. Norton / October 2016)

known-and-strange-things-design-alex-merto-photography-teju-cole

Known and Strange Things by Teju Cole; design by Alex Merto; photograph Teju Cole (Random House / August 2016)

The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter; design by Jack Smyth; illustration Pietari Posti (Virago / October 2016)

The Mothers by Brit Bennett; design by Rachel Wiley (Riverhead / October 2016)

Multiple Choice by Alejandro Zambra; design Jonathan Pelham (Granta / October 2016)

Nayon Cho’s design for the US edition of Multiple Choice, published by Penguin US, was featured in July’s covers post.

Reality is Not What it Seems by Carlo Rovelli; design by Coralie Bickford-Smith (Allen Lane / October 2016)

This goes rather nicely with Coralie’s design for Rovelli’s previous book Seven Brief Lessons in Physics:

Results May Vary by Bethany Chase; design by Misa Erder (Ballantine / August 2016)

Sirius by Jonathan Crown; cover art by Pascal Blanchet (Scribner / October 2016)

That Self-Forgetful Perfectly Useless Concentration by Alan Shapiro; design by Isaac Tobin (University of Chicago Press / October 2016)

The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang; design by Kimberly Glyder (Houghton Mifflin / October 2016)

The Wealth of Humans by Ryan Avent; design by Tom Etherington (Allen Lane / September 2016)

Who Killed Piet Barol? by Richard Mason; design Sinem Erkas (Weidenfeld & Nicolson / September 2016)

Wrecked by Maria Padian; design by Liz Casal (Algonquin Young Readers / October 2016)

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Published September 23, 2016

Cynan Jones Covers by Jenny Grigg

I’m a little late to work of Welsh novelist Cynan Jones, but I recently finished reading his award-winning 2014 novel The Dig, and it’s not hard to see what all the fuss is about. The writing is beautifully spare and intimate, and the story is devastating.¹

The stark, illustrated cover of The Dig and Jones’s earlier books, recently republished by Granta, also caught my eye. The striking designs are, it turns out, by the brilliant Australian designer Jenny Grigg, which seems obvious once you know. Her previous covers for Peter Carey and Ernest Hemingway have similarly bold simplicity and tone.

Grigg has also designed the cover of Jones’s new novel, The Cove, which will be published by Granta in November.

If you are going to read one novel about grief, isolation, sheep farming and the horrific cruelty of badger baiting this year, make it The Dig. ↩︎

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Published September 12, 2016

Book Covers of Note September 2016

It’s September. It’s busy.

All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan; design by James Paul Jones (Transworld / September 2016)

Art of Memoir by Mary Karr; design by Robin Bilardello (Harper Perennial / September 2016)

Before by Carmen Boullosa; design by Anna Zylicz (Deep Vellum / August 2016)

The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning and the Universe Itself by Sean Carroll; design by Jamie Keenan (Oneworld / September 2016)

Cannibal by Safiya Sinclair; design by Nathan Putens; artwork by Wangechi Mutu (University of Nebraska Press / September 2016)

Cannibals in Love by Mike Roberts; design by Na Kim (FSG Original / September 2016)

Carousel Court by Joe McGinniss Jr.; design by Ben Wiseman (Simon & Schuster / August 2016)

Drinks: A Users Guide by Adam McDowell; design by Danielle Deschenes (TarcherPerigee / September 2016)

Dr. Knox by Peter Spiegelman; design by Oliver Munday (Knopf / July 2016)

Gold from the Stone by Lemn Sissay; design by Pete Adlington (Canongate / August 2016)

The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shukla; design by James Paul Jones (Unbound / September 2016)

Little Nothing by Marisa Silver; design by Rachel Willey (Blue Rider Press / September 2016)

Looking for the Stranger by Alice Kaplan; design by Isaac Tobin (University of Chicago Press / September 2016)

The Nix by Nathan Hill; design by Oliver Munday (Knopf / August 2016)

Notes from the Shadowed City by Jeffery Alan Love; cover art by Jeffrey Alan Love (Flesk / September 2016)

Phantom Limbs by Paula Garner; design by Matt Roeser (Candlewick / September 2016)

Raindrop covers could be a new thing…

All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan; design by James Paul Jones (Transworld / September 2016)

design Matt Roeser

design Janet Hansen

pour-me-a-life-design-jason-booher
Pour Me Life by A. A. Gill; design by Jason Booher (Blue Rider Press / September 2016)

Reputations by Juan Gabriel Vásquez; design by Alex Merto (Riverhead / September 2016)

Sex and Death edited by Sarah Hall and Peter Hobbs; design by Luke Bird (Faber & Faber / September 2016)

The Strange Case of Rachel K design by Paul Sahre (New Directions / September 2016)

This paperback cover is a nice contrast to last year’s hardcover, also designed by Mr. Sahre:

strange-case-of-rachel-k-design-paul-sahre

The Strange Case of Rachel K design by Paul Sahre (New Directions / September 2016)

Stranger Father Beloved by Taylor Larsen; design by Anna Dorfman (Gallery Books / July 2016)

Substitute by Nicholson Baker; design by Spencer Kimble (Blue Rider Press / September 2016)

33 Artists in 3 Acts by Sarah Thornton; design by David Drummond (W.W. Norton / September 2016)

Timekeepers by Simon Garfield; design by Pete Adlington (Canongate / September 2016)

Concentric circles… still a thing (see here for more examples).

Time Travel by James Gleick; design by Peter Mendelsund (Pantheon / September 2016)

War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans; design by Oliver Munday (Pantheon /August 2016)

Welcome to the Universe by Neil Degrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, J. Richard Gott; design by Chris Ferrante (Princeton University Press / September 2016)

Loving these minimal black and white covers for books about the universe…

Welcome to the Universe by Neil Degrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, J. Richard Gott; design by Chris Ferrante (Princeton University Press / September 2016)

Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space by Janna Levin; design by Janet Hansen(Knopf / March 2016)

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Wolf Boys by Dan Slater; design by Grace Han (Simon & Schuster / September 2016)

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue design by Kimberly Glyder (Little, Brown & Co. / September 2016)

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue design by Jo Thompson (Picador / September 2016)

The UK and US covers actually make a lovely pair…

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Published September 6, 2016

A Dickensian Alphabet

Tom Gauld has made a print for London comics store Gosh! to celebrate their 30th anniversary. You can buy it online here.

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Published August 23, 2016

The Great Discontent: Jean Jullien

Tammi Heneveld interviews London-based graphic artist Jean Jullien for The Great Discontent:

My parents definitely introduced me to a lot of culture. My dad was keen on French bandes dessinées (comic strips) and music, which probably had something to do with my brother becoming a musician later on. My mom was very interested in architecture, product design, and classic and modern art, which she introduced us to…

…I was always more focused on graphic design, but I ended up doing illustration in a convoluted way. I started using a brush pen to break free from working on a computer all of the time and to experiment creatively. I felt quite comfortable with it and could draw letters as well as characters. That’s when I realized that the practice of illustration and graphic design aren’t necessarily exclusive. I also discovered designers like Alan Fletcher, Saul Bass, and Paul Rand, whose work all had a great sense of playfulness and a tactile aspect that I was really fond of.

Modern Life, a compendium of Jullien’s best known work, will be published by teNeues next month.

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Published August 16, 2016

New Penguin Essentials

The latest additions to Penguin’s ‘Essentials’ series, released this month, have some rather splendid new covers, including Jon Gray‘s wonderful design for Embers by Sandor Márai, Julian House’s typographic design (with echoes of Robert Brownjohn) for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and David Foldvari‘s illustrated design for How Many Miles to Babylon by Jennifer Johnston.

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John LeCarre; design Julian House (Penguin / 2016)

How Many Miles to Babylon by Jennifer Johnston; design David Foldvari (Penguin / 2016)

You can see more of the new Penguin Essentials covers, and read about the design process, at Design Week.

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Published July 12, 2016

Book Covers of Note July 2016

I swear that these posts are taking me longer and longer to compile, but rest assured there are some wonderful covers this month:

All the Time in the World by Caroline Angell; design by Lucy Kim (Henry Holt / July 2016)

American Girls by Alison Umminger; design by Philip Pascuzzo (Flat Iron / June 2016)

Beast design Mark Ecob
Beast by Paul Kingsnorth; design Mark Ecob; illustration Alan Rogerson (Faber & Faber / July 2016)

Boy Erased by Garrard Conley; design Rachel Willey (Riverhead / May 2016)

A Cop’s Eyes by Gaku Yakumaru; design by Peter Mendelsund (Vertical / May 2016)

ContestedTastes design Jason Alejandro
Contested by Michaela Desoucey; design Jason Alejandro (Princeton University Press / July 2016)

Corbyn by Richard Seymour; design by Dan Mogford (Verso / July 2016)

Creativity Class by Lily Chumley; design by Amanda Weiss (Princeton University Press / July 2016)

Dialogue by Robert McKee; design by Catherine Casalino (Twelve Books / July 2016)

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff; design by Melissa Four (Windmill Books / July 2016)

It’s interesting to compare/contrast this new cover for the UK paperback with the covers of the UK hardcover, designed by Suzanne Dean, and the US hardcover, designed by Rodrigo Corral and Adalis Martinez:

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff; design by Suzanne Dean (William Heinemann / September 2015)

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff; design by Rodrigo Corral and Adalis Martinez (Riverhead / September 2015 )

The Food & Wine of France by Edward Behr; design by Samantha Russo; photograph Oddur Thorisson (Penguin / July 2016)

Grace by Natashia Deón; design by Elena Giavaldi (Counterpoint / June 2016)

The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone; design by Chelsea McGuckin; art by David Wu (Atria Books / July 2016)

Hot Little Hands by Abigail Ulman; art direction by Greg Mollica; design by Ben Wiseman; photograph by RJ Shaughnessy (Spiegel & Grau / May 2016)

It’s also interesting to see US hardcover next to the purely typographic cover from Australia designed by Laura Thomas, and the racier, retro Penguin UK cover designed by Richard Bravery:

Design by Laura Thomas (Scribe / 2016)

Hot Little Hands by Abigail Ulman; design by Richard Bravery (Penguin UK / June 2016)

How to Set a Fire and Why by Jesse Ball; design by Kelly Blair (Pantheon / July 2016)

This struck me as something as quite a bold change of direction for the covers of Jesse Ball’s novels, which have often been quite minimal and typographic. It feel quite different to the recent paperback edition of A Cure for Suicide by Jesse Ball, designed by Helen Yentus and Jason Booher (Vintage / June 2016), for example:

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In the Flow by Boris Groys; design by Everything Studio (Verso / March 2016)

Invincible Summer by Alice Adams; design by Lauren Harms (Little, Brown & Co. / June 2016)

The UK cover of Invincible Summer, designed by Justine Anweiler, was included in last month’s post.

Invincible Summer by Alice Adams; design by Lauren Harms (Little, Brown & Co. / June 2016)

Invincible Summer design Justine Anweiler

Listen to Me design Catherine Casalino
Listen to Me by Hannah Pittard; design by Catherine Casalino (HMH / July 2016)

Multiple Choice by Alejandro Zambra; design by Nayon Cho (Penguin / July 2016)

Smoke by Dan Vyleta; design by Mark Swan (Weidenfeld & Nicolson / July 2016)

storm of steel design Neil Gower
Storm and Steel by Ernst Jünger; design by Neil Gower (Penguin / May 2016)

Street Furniture Design by Eleanor Herring; design by Daniel Benneworth-Gray (Bloomsbury / July 2016)

The Sun in Your Eyes by Deborah Shapiro; design by Mumtaz Mustafa (HarperCollins / July 2016)

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab; design Jenna Stempel (GreenWillow / July 2016)

Undying by Michel Faber; design by Rafi Romaya; art by Yehrin Tong (Canongate / July 2016)

The paperback of Michel Faber’s Some Rain Must Fall is out this month too. The cover is another Rafi Romaya / Yehrin Tong collaboration:

Some Rain Must Fall and Other Stories by Michel Faber; design by Rafi Romaya; art by Yehrin Tong (Canongate / July 2016)

Undying by Michel Faber; design by Rafi Romaya; art by Yehrin Tong (Canongate / July 2016)

Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler; design by Kris Potter (Hogarth / June 2016)

As I noted on Twitter earlier this week, this combination of type and overlapping floral image — lovely as it is — is becoming a bit of a thing…

Boy Erased by Garrard Conley; design Rachel Willey (Riverhead / May 2016)

If anyone has a good name (and/or pithy description) for this trend let me know. In the meantime, designer Dan Blackman pointed me to his beautiful poster designs for DelVal College from 2011, which are early examples of this idea…

What Language Do I Dream In design Gray318
What Language Do I Dream In by Elena Lappin; design by Gray318 (Virago / June 2016)

Who Will Catch Us As We Fall by Iman Verjee; design by James Paul Jones (Oneworld / July 2016)

Windows into the Soul by Gary T. Marx; design by Isaac Tobin (University of Chicago Press / July 2016)

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Published June 20, 2016

Punctuation

quotes

Grant Snider has drawn a lovely series of cartoons on punctuation for The New Yorker.

exclamation

ampersand

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Published June 8, 2016

Beast

CR_Beast-open-book

Creative Review talks to Mark Ecob about his cover design for Paul Kingnorth’s new book Beast (Faber & Faber, July 2016), which incorporates “a series of folkloric linocut illustrations” by Alan Rogerson.

CR-Beast-front-cover-papers CR-Beast-back-cover-papers

I love this cover.

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Published June 2, 2016

ELCAF 2016 Official Poster

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The official poster for the fifth East London Comics Art Festival by Jean Jullien.

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Published May 25, 2016

Fable

Fable Tom Gauld

Not an actual book cover, but a new Tom Gauld illustration for a Charles Yu (Sorry Please Thank You) short story in The New Yorker.

Tom has also just joined Instagram if that’s your thing.

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Published May 25, 2016

Darwyn Cooke 1962 — 2016

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parker darwyn cooke 2

I was sadden to hear that Canadian cartoonist Darwyn Cooke had died earlier this month from lung cancer, age 53. I never had the opportunity to meet Cooke in person, but I liked his adaptations of Donald Westlake’s Parker novels very much, and thought that The New Frontier, his elegant tribute to Silver Age comics, could reinvigorate a superhero genre mired in cynicism. His work — reminiscent of Will Eisner, whose The Spirit he also drew — was full of charm and joy. Cooke’s friend Nathalie Atkinson wrote his obituary for the Globe & Mail:

Although he was a proud Canadian, it was John F. Kennedy’s Camelot – with its Cold War tensions, social upheaval and cool aesthetics – that held an enduring fascination for him. His masterwork ‘DC: The New Frontier’ (2004) sets the origins of the Justice League and the characters of the DC Silver Age into a powerful narrative set in the America of that era. The six-issue comic book series, named for the JFK’s 1960 Democratic nomination acceptance speech, would win Mr. Cooke the first of his 13 Eisner Awards, the industry’s most prestigious accolade, and he won many of its others – Reubens, Harveys and several Shusters, the Canadian comics awards named for the Canadian co-creator of Superman… His dynamic illustration, panel design and thoughtful approach to writing transcended mere nostalgia, whether he was telling hard-boiled stories of anti-heroes or exploring heroism through superheroes. Although whenever it was suggested to Mr. Cooke that he was an auteur he’d reply, “I’m more like John McTiernan,” the director of Die Hard, one of his favourite movies. “That’s the kind of creator he thought he was,” his friend Michael Cho says. “An entertainer.”

new frontier darwyn cooke

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Tag: illustration

Book Covers of Note October 2016

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Cynan Jones Covers by Jenny Grigg

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Book Covers of Note September 2016

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A Dickensian Alphabet

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The Great Discontent: Jean Jullien

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New Penguin Essentials

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Book Covers of Note July 2016

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Punctuation

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Beast

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ELCAF 2016 Official Poster

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Fable

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Darwyn Cooke 1962 — 2016

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Tag: illustration

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