(I don’t think I’ve posted this before have I? It seems timely nonetheless).
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Published June 28, 2016
The Casual Optimist Posts
Published June 23, 2016
50 Books / 50 Covers Winners 2015
Congratulations to the winners of this year’s 50 Books | 50 Covers competition organized by Design Observer in association with AIGA. All fifty winning books can be found here; the winning covers here.
Act of God design Janet Hansen
Drinking in America design Rex Bonomelli
Barbara the Slut by Lauren Holmes; design by Rachel Willey (Riverhead / August 2015)
One Day in the Life of the English Language design Chris Ferrante
The Woman Who Read Too Much design Anne Jordan & Mitch Goldstein
Voices in the Night by Steven Millhauser; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / April 2015)
Published June 22, 2016
RAMS: The First Feature Documentary About Dieter Rams
Gary Hustwit, the director of the documentaries Helvetica, Objectified, and Urbanized, is making a feature-length documentary about the life and work of designer Dieter Rams:
You can support the production on Kickstarter.
Published June 20, 2016
Punctuation
Grant Snider has drawn a lovely series of cartoons on punctuation for The New Yorker.
Published June 20, 2016
“What a Silly Idea”
Tom Gauld on women leads in spy fiction for The Guardian. See also, people of colour in fantasy films.
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Published June 14, 2016
Johnston100 for Transport for London
A short film about Monotype’s update to Transport for London’s Johnston typeface:
Originally designed by Edward Johnston in 1916, the ‘remastered’ Johnston100 typeface, attempts to restore the idiosyncrasies of the Johnston’s design while expanding it to embrace contemporary typographic trends and meet new digital requirements. Johnston100 includes five weights of the design, including two brand new weights, hairline and thin, and will start appearing across the TfL network later this year.
(via Alistair Hall)
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Published June 13, 2016
Classic Literature with Added Science!
Published June 10, 2016
Australian Book Design Awards Catalogue 2016
Earlier this week I received a copy of the 2016 Australian Book Design Awards Catalogue designed by Alissa Dinallo. My photos don’t really do it justice, but it is a thing of beauty:
ABDA 16 Catalogue Stamp
ABDA 16 Catalogue title
You can buy a copy of the catalogue from the ABDA wesbite.
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Published June 9, 2016
Book Covers of Note June 2016
Something of a bumper post this month, with lots of black and white covers for some reason. Perhaps it’s a thing…?
Addlands by Tom Bullough; design by Jenny Grigg (Granta / June 2016)
Barkskins by Annie Proulx; design Jaya Miceli (Scribner / June 2016)
The cover of the UK edition (Fourth Estate / June 2016), designed by Anna Morrison, is an interesting contrast:
Barkskins by Annie Proulx; design Jaya Miceli (Scribner / June 2016)
A Boys Own Story by Edmund White; design by Ami Smithson (Picador / June 2016)
But What If We’re Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman; design by Paul Sahre (Blue Rider Press / June 2016)
The Chaplin Machine by Owen Hatherley; design by David Pearson (Pluto Press / June 2016)
The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund; design by Peter Mendelsund & Oliver Munday (Knopf / June 2016)
Death Confetti by Jennifer Robin; design by Jacob Covey (Feral House / June 2016)
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry; design Peter Dyer (Serpent’s Tail / June 2016)
Fen by Daisy Johnson; design Suzanne Dean (Vintage / June 2016)
The Girls by Emma Cline; design Peter Mendelsund; lettering by Jenny Pouech (Random House / June 2016)
The cover of the UK edition (Chatto & Windus / June 2016), which makes intriguing use of ITC Avant Garde Gothic,1 was designed by Suzanne Dean:
Goldfish by Nat Luurtsema; design by Anna Booth (Feiwel & Friends / June 2016)
(This has a fancy spot gloss that makes the school of fish appear to shimmer)
How to Ruin Everything by George Watsky; design by Ben Denzer (Penguin / June 2016)
Human Acts by Han Kang; design by Tom Darracott (Portobello Books / January 2016)
Infomocracy by Malka Older; design by Will Staehle (Tor Books / June 2016)
Ink and Bone by Lisa Unger; design by Ervin Serrano (Touchstone / June 2016)
In the Dark in the Woods by Eliza Wass; design by Kate Gaughran (Quercus / April 2016)
Is That Kafka? 99 Finds by Reiner Stach; design by Erik Carter (New Directions / April 2016)
Invincible Summer by Alice Adams; design by Justine Anweiler (Picador / June 2016)
The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray; design by Peter Adlington (Canongate / June 2016)
The cover of the US edition (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / February 2016), designed by Janet Hansen, is another fascinating contrast:
Lost Time Accidents by John Wray; design by Janet Hansen (FSG / February 2016)
The Muse by Jessie Burton; design by Ami Smithson, cover art by Lisa Perrin (Picador / June 2016)
Naked Diplomacy by Tom Fletcher; cover design by Jonathan Pelham (William Collins / June 2016)
Nitro Mountain by Lee Clay Johnson; design by Oliver Munday (Knopf / May 2016)
The Panama Papers by Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier; design by James Paul Jones (Oneworld / June 2016)
Rasputin and Other Ironies by Teffi; design by Eleanor Crow; cover art by Ed Kluz (Pushkin Press / May 2016)
Scar by J. Albert Mann; design by Christopher Silas Neal (Calkins Creek / April 2016)
Sex Object by Jessica Valenti; design by Lynn Buckley (Dey Street / June 2016)
White Sands by Geoff Dyer; design by Peter Adlington (Canongate / June 2016)
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Published June 8, 2016
Beast
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.
I love this cover.
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Published June 6, 2016
All the Books
At Literary Hub, Designer Oliver Munday discusses his design process and reading the whole text:
Comments closedAs designers, we are forced to read quickly, and incisively, mining for the clues to the coveted iconic cover. It can feel careless at times, leading me to believe that my reading skills are being dulled. I think of the author in this process, and in some ways the guilt that I may feel about a less-than-ideal reading of their text is exceeded by the potential of presenting their book with the best possible jacket, one that their audience of ideal readers will appreciate. A cover that feels simultaneously unexpected and inevitable.
I used to aspire to a process that created an expanse for reading each text, one that merged the ideal-designer and ideal-reader into one, but found the boundaries of distinction too severely marked. It would be amazing to have the time, space, and inclination to read an entire text when designing its cover, but I have realized that is not essential. There may be times when my two selves are reconciled, but in the event that they exist separately, a reading designer, divided against himself, will remain standing.
Published June 3, 2016
How To Be a Bad Writer
Tom Gauld for The Guardian, inspired by this piece on what makes bad writing bad by Toby Litt.
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