Books, Design and Culture
I like these bright and bold covers by Stephen Smith, AKA Neasden Control Centre, for the new Vintage Classics editions of Julio Cortázar a lot. It feels like an inspired match of illustrator to author. The art direction is by Suzanne Dean of course.
You will have to wait for the hardcover of Divertimento (translated into English for the first time by Harry Morales) because it doesn’t go on sale until May 2026, but the paperback reissues came out last month in the UK.
In my last post on the book covers of 2015, I thought I would take a look back at some of the series that caught my eye this this year…
Stephen Baxter / Manifold; design by Mike Topping (Harper Voyager / 2015)
Stephen Baxter / The NASA Trilogy; design by Mike Topping (Harper Voyager / 2015)
Vintage Bronte; design by Suzanne Dean; lettering by Lily Jones; cover art Sarah Gillespie; picture research by Lily Richards (Vintage / 2015)
Noam Chomsky; design by David Pearson (Pushkin Press / 2015)
Rachel Cohn; design by Lizzy Bromley (Simon & Schuster / 2015)
Freemans; design by Michael Salu (Grove / 2015)
The very first Freeman’s anthology was published in fall this year, but hopefully this design will set the tone for the rest of the series. The second volume is scheduled for next year.
Vintage Feminism; design by Matthew Broughton (Vintage / 2015)
Little Black Classics; design by Jim Stoddart (Penguin / 2015)
(There are an awful lot of these!)
C. S. Lewis; design by Kimberly Glyder (HarperOne / 2015)
New Directions in Media History; design by David A. Gee (Polity Press / 2015)
New Modernisms; design by Daniel Benneworth-Gray (Bloomsbury / 2015)
Tim O’Brien; design by Jo Walker (Fourth Estate / 2015)
The Penguin Book of the British Short Story Volumes 1 & 2; design Matthew Young (Penguin /2015)
Picador Modern Classics; design by Kelly Blair (Picador USA / 2015)
Pushkin Vertigo; design by Jamie Keenan (Pushkin Press / 2015)
Russian Plays in Translation; design John Gall (Theater Books / 2015)
Radical Thinkers Volume 9; design by Rumors (Verso / 2015)
This isn’t a new series of course, but this set marked a colourful change of direction. You can read about the design here.
Serpent’s Tail Classics; design by Steve Panton; series design Peter Dyer (Serpent’s Tail / 2015)
Lionel Shriver; design by Stuart Bache (HarperCollins / 2015)
Mark Twain; design by Isabel Urbina Peña (Vintage / 2015)
Wildcat Series; design by Jamie Keenan (Pluto Press / 2015)
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