book cover design magazine New & Noteworthy Covers Gender & Children's Publishing Interview: Anne Jordan
S P I N E
“So many books, so little time.” — frank zappa
Putting together this third issue has been the most fun one yet. The number of people getting in touch about how much they loved the last issue was fantastic and certainly made the hard work worthwhile. I hope you all enjoy this third issue and to those of you who are new readers: welcome! Edited by Emma J Hardy With thanks to Alice Tomlinson & William Speed for help with noteworthy cover selections and to Alex Connock for generally putting up with my endless requests for input.
Fiction Showcase Non Fiction Showcase Series Reviews Gender & Children's Publishing Interview: Anne Jordan
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fic·tion
/ˈfɪkʃ(ə)n/ 1
[mass noun] literature in the form of
prose, especially novels that describes
imaginary events and people.
Classic Graphic Novel Crime Fable Fairy tale Fantasy Folklore Historical Horror Humour Melodrama Metafiction Mystery Mythology Mythopoeia Sci-fi Western Romance Romp
7
dark entries
This cover features an impressive and atmospheric
robert aickman illustration combined with typography that doesn't design by: illustration by tim mcdonal compete with its surroundings. design by faber & faber publisher's description:
Robert Aickman (1914-1981) was the grandson of Richard Marsh, a leading Victorian novelist of the occult. Though his chief occupation in life was first as a conservationist of England's canals he eventually turned his talents to writing what he called 'strange stories.' Dark Entries (1964) was his first full collection, the debut in a body of work that would inspire Peter Straub to hail Aickman as 'this century's most profound writer of what we call horror stories.'
9
the fugitives
We love the rough and ready aspect to this cover,
panos karnezis although many books are going with scribbly type, design by: this manages to stand apart from the others. sława harasymowicz publisher's description:
In a remote corner of a Latin American rainforest, a badly wounded soldier encounters an English Catholic priest who takes him to the Indian village where Father Thomas has his church. The Indians, whose traditional way of life is under threat from squatters who settle in the forest they once had all to themselves, are wary of the new arrival. The army has been sent to evict the squatters, but they are defended by a group of guerrillas. Venustiano, the proud young Indian head of the village, is determined to protect his people, but sometimes feels powerless against the changes taking place around him.
11
grief is the thing with feathers
Well handled type hierarchy with just the right
max porter amount of black for a cover that could have gone design by faber & faber overboard considering the book's theme. illustration by eleanor crow publisher's description:
In a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother's sudden death. Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness. In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow - antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This sentimental bird is drawn to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and the pain of loss gives way to memories, the little unit of three starts to heal. In this extraordinary debut - part novella, part polyphonic fable, part essay on grief - Max Porter's compassion and bravura style combine to dazzling effect. Full of unexpected humour and profound emotional truth, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers marks the arrival of a thrilling new talent.
13
the dust that falls from dreams
We always admire a well executed border pattern,
louis de bernieres and we particularly love the subtle elements that design by: hint to the story in this design. oliver munday publisher's description:
In the brief golden years of the Edwardian era the McCosh sisters grow up in an idyllic household in the countryside south of London. On one side, their neighbors are the proper Pendennis family, recently arrived from Baltimore, whose close-in-age boys shake their father’s hand at breakfast and address him as “sir.” On the other side is the Pitt family: a “resolutely French” mother, a former navy captain father, and two brothers, Archie and Daniel, who are clearly “going to grow up into a pair of daredevils and adventurers.” In childhood this band is inseparable, but the days of careless camaraderie are brought to an abrupt halt by the outbreak of The Great War, in which everyone will play a part.
15
memoirs of a dipper
A great choice of colour and layout creates a well
nell leyshon harmonised taster of the book's story. An example design by: of 'less is more' executed perfectly. gray318 publisher's description:
Gary is a dipper, a burglar, a thief. He is still at junior school when his father first takes him out on the rob, and proves a fast learner: not much more than a child the first time he gets caught, he is a career criminal as soon as he is out again. But Gary is also fiercely intelligent - he often knows more about the antique furniture he is stealing than the people who own it, and is confident in his ability to trick his way out of any situation, always one step ahead.
17
quicksand
This hardcover really needs to be seen in the flesh to be
steve toltz fully appreciated, the diecut 'Q' reveals the illustration design by: beneath. Eye catching and unusual. peter dyer publisher's description:
Aldo Benjamin, relentlessly unlucky in every aspect of life, has always faced the future with despair and optimism in equal measure. His latest misfortune, however, may finally be his undoing. There's still hope, but not for Aldo.His mate Liam hasn't been faring much better - a failed writer with a rocky marriage and a dangerous job he never wanted - until he finds inspiration in Aldo's exponential disasters. What begins as an attempt to document these improbable but inevitable experiences spirals into a profound exploration of fate, fear and friendship.
19
song of the sea maid
The texture on the printed jacket matches the raw
rebecca mascull but beautiful illustration and creates a wonderfully design by: tactile experience. hodder & stoughton publisher's description:
In the 18th century, Dawnay Price is an anomaly. An educated foundling, a woman of science in a time when such things are unheard-of, she overcomes her origins to become a natural philosopher. Against the conventions of the day, and to the alarm of her male contemporaries, she sets sail to Portugal to develop her theories. There she makes some startling discoveries - not only in an ancient cave whose secrets hint at a previously undiscovered civilisation, but also in her own heart. The siren call of science is powerful, but as war approaches she finds herself pulled in another direction by feelings she cannot control.
21
the house of hidden mothers
We love this cover for its interesting typography and
meera syal rough style, in a world where things are often overdesign by claire ward thought and over-polished, this is a refreshing gem. illustration by jonny hannah publisher's description:
Welcome to Little India, East London, where Shyama, aged forty-four, has fallen for a younger man. They want a child together. Welcome to a rural village in India, where young Mala, trapped in an oppressive marriage, dreams of escape. When Shyama and Mala meet, they help each other realise their dreams. But will fate guarantee them both happiness?
23
where my heart used to beat
This design evokes the mood of the book with its muted
sebastian faulks colours, ragged clouds and seascapes. It's sure to catch design by: the attention of readers looking for realist fiction. glenn o'neill publisher's description:
On a small island off the south coast of France, Robert Hendricks, an English doctor who has seen the best and the worst the twentieth century had to offer, is forced to confront the events that made up his life. His host, and antagonist, is Alexander Pereira, a man whose time is running out, but who seems to know more about his guest than Hendricks himself does. The search for sanity takes us through the war in Italy in 1944, a passionate love that seems to hold out hope, the great days of idealistic work in the 1960s and finally – unforgettably – back into the trenches of the Western Front.
25
love is not the end
A nice example of flourishes creating an impactiful
graham thomas cover – this design carefully treads the line between design by: elegance and impact. adam sibley publisher's description:
'When Pearl died for the first time, she did not think of the fateful night in the Town of Ramsgate two hundred years prior when she and Gaspard murdered their love affair. Pearl was so sure that she would have but when she died and found herself fixating on something trivial instead, it felt as if the cosmos had revealed to her that two plus two really equalled five. She had no time to re-evaluate. She had no time at all. Pearl just passed away. Alone. Sad..., but that was just the first time she died.'
27
sirius
We love this unfussy cover for its clever use of
jonathan crown stencils and colour, that immediately puts the reader
in the right time period.
publisher's description:
Germany, 1938.In Berlin, his owners christened him Levi. A good Jewish dog with a good Jewish name. When they fled to America, he became Hercules. Star of the silver screen in Hollywood's golden age.Then he caught the eye of Hitler, who called him Hansi. A pure-bred lapdog; privy to all the F端hrer's secrets. But he was known to the Resistance as Sirius. The insider who could bring peace to a world at war... Now it is time for his story to be told. SIRIUS: the little dog who almost changed history.
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death in devon
Although this cover sticks to a well-trodden style,
ian sanson the typography and illustration layout still feels fresh
and intriguing.
publisher's description:
CREAM TEAS! SCHOOL DINNERS! SATANIC SURFERS! Join our heroes as they follow up a Norfolk Mystery with a bad case of … DEATH IN DEVON. Swanton Morley, the People’s Professor, sets off for Devon to continue his history of England, The County Guides. Morley’s daughter Miriam and his assistant Stephen Sefton pack up the Lagonda for a trip to the English Riviera. Morley has been invited to give the Founder’s Day speech at All Souls School in Rousdon. But when the trio arrive they discover that a boy has died in mysterious circumstances. Was it an accident or was it – murder?Join Morley, Sefton and Miram on another adventure into the dark heart of 1930s England.
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the wolf wilder
An astonishingly beautiful illustration matches the
katherine rundell equally beautiful interior illustrations. The typography illustration by: must have been a challenge but it's been done brilliantly. gelrev ongbico publisher's description:
Feodora and her mother live in the snowbound woods of Russia, in a house full of food and fireplaces. Ten minutes away, in a ruined chapel, lives a pack of wolves. Feodora's mother is a wolf wilder, and Feo is a wolf wilder in training. A wolf wilder is the opposite of an animal tamer: it is a person who teaches tamed animals to fend for themselves, and to fight and to run, and to be wary of humans.
33
yellow
Bold but not garish, this minimal design perfectly
yu kops chow captures the childishness of the book, without looking illustration by hannah kops like a child did it. design by yat-hong chow publisher's description:
It's written by Y端 in early 2014 when he was 7 years old going on 8. It's a collection of fictional short stories based on real events during his third year in primary school. It eventually became a family project, which involved both dad and mom (design and illustrations), and supports from a small number of people all over the world (crowdfunding).
35
the bell jar
This dynamic design recreates the movement and
student project dischord of Plath's well known work beautifully. design by: jessica le description:
"This was concept work that I did when I was a university student. After reading the book I found that there was something that broke (which I liked as an image) and I decided to use collage to play on this aspect. The individual colour collage pieces were cut from 60s magazines – the time in which the book was published. I chose to photograph, rather than scan the collage, because I wanted to keep the some of the shadows. The title font is Ugly Qua and I hand wrote the author's name with a brush pen.
37
the museum of hings left behind
The typography on this cover successfully integrates
seni glaister with the lovely colour palette and simplicity of the
beautifully clean illustration style.
publisher's description:
Escape into this hugely enjoyable, big-hearted and beautifully written novel, set in Vallerosa, a European country you’ve never heard of before. Vallerosa is every tourist’s dream – a tiny, picturesque country surrounded by lush valleys and verdant mountains; a place sheltered from modern life and the rampant march of capitalism. But in isolation, the locals have grown cranky, unfulfilled and disaffected. In the Presidential Palace hostile Americans, wise to the country’s financial potential, are circling like sharks …Can the town be fixed? Can the local bar owners be reconciled? Can an unlikely visitor be the agent of change and rejuvenation this broken idyll is crying out for?
non·fic·tion
1
/ˌnänˈfiksh(ə)n/
[mass noun] prose writing that is based on facts, real events, and real people, such as biography or history.
Biography Autobiography Essay Narrative Speech Textbook Reference book Monograph Instructional Scientific Art & Design Historical Politics Social Science Medicine Business Computing Mathematics Marketing
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nopi
Elegant and original, this cover is particularly beautiful
yotam ottolenghi & ramael scully for its restrained use of gold foiling on the cover; a subtle design by: nod to the Nopi restaurant's decor. here design publisher's description:
Includes over 120 of the most popular dishes from Yotam’s innovative Soho-based restaurant NOPI. It’s written with long-time collaborator and NOPI head chef Ramael Scully, who brings his distinctive Asian twist to the Ottolenghi kitchen. Whether you’re a regular at the NOPI restaurant and want to know the secret to your favourite dish or are an Ottolenghi fan who wants to try out restaurant-style cooking, this is a collection of recipes which will inspire, challenge and delight.
43
dead babies and seaside tows
An incredibly difficult subject matter and long title
alice jolly must have proved quite a challenge for the designer design by: here. However, they've found a beautiful solution here. mecob publisher's description:
The world of dead babies is a silent and shuttered place. You do not know it exists until you find yourself there. When Alice Jolly's second child was stillborn and all subsequent attempts to have another baby failed, she began to consider every possible option, no matter how unorthodox. Dead Babies and Seaside Towns is a savagely personal account of the search for an alternative way to create a family. As she battles through miscarriage, IVF and failed adoption attempts, Alice's only solace from the pain is the faded charm of Britain's crumbling seaside towns. Finally, this search leads her and her husband to a small town in Minnesota, and two remarkable women who offer to make the impossible possible.
45
the private lives of the saints
Although it loses something when not on its jacket
dr. janina ramirez paper, this design still holds its own. We particularly like design by: that it references the design style of the Anglo-Saxons. a practice for everyday life publisher's description:
The word ‘saint’ conjures a variety of associations in our modern minds. Some might connect it with suffering, charity and devotion to Christian values; others with miracles, martyrdom and heavenly gifts like the stigmata, while others still associate them with superstition, fanaticism and the power of the Papacy. But far from the one-dimensional pious figures we imagine, the saints were the power players, king makers and politicians of the day, and by re-examining their lives – the art and literature that inspired them, the landscape and buildings that surrounded them, the issues that preoccupied them and the symbolic world that mattered to them – this landmark book provides a unique and fascinating lens through which to explore the history of the Dark Ages.
47
teaching stephen king
A wonderfully executed homage to the instantly
alissa burger recognisable style of King's novels. Great attention to design by: detail in all aspects of the typography & image choice. william speed publisher's description:
Teaching Stephen King critically examines the works of Stephen King and several ways King can be incorporated into the high school and college classroom. The section on Variations on Horror Tropes includes chapters on the vampire, the werewolf, the undead monster, and the ghost. The section on Real Life Horror includes chapters on King's school shooting novella Rage, sexual violence, and coming of age narratives. Finally, the section on Playing with Publishing includes chapters on serial publishing and The Green Mile, e-books, and graphic novels.
49
weatherland
I'm very glad that this cover drew me to this book; it
alexandra harris sounds fascinating. A well chosen typeface for the title
is balanced nicely with the abstract cloud illustration.
publisher's description:
The story of English culture over a thousand years can be told as the story of changing ideas about the weather. Writers and artists across the centuries, looking up at the same skies and walking in the same brisk air, have felt very different things. In a sweeping panorama, Weatherland allows us to witness cultural climates on the move. The Anglo-Saxons before the Norman Conquest lived in a wintry world, writing about the coldness of exile or the shelters they must defend against enemies outdoors.
51
dead white men [...]
This textbook written as though its a novel needed a
angus bancroft & ralph fevre fitting cover design & this design definitely successfully design by: stands apart from other non-fiction in its category. alex connock publisher's description:
This is a textbook with a twist. Written as a novel, it follows the story of Mila, a new student who is making it her mission to find out what makes sociology so important. Grappling with the subject's big ideas, Mila tests out sociological themes, debates and theories through conversations with new university friends and family back at home. As she begins to understand how sociology can be applied to everyday experiences, she starts to look at the world around her in a new light.
53
750 years in paris
Nobrow's choice of illustrators and designers never
vincent mahe disappoints, and this cover is no exception. An enticing design by: introduction to an unusual graphic novel. vincent mahe/nobrow publisher's description:
A literary graphic novel unlike anything else on the racks, 750 Years tells the story of our time, focusing on one single building in France as it sees its way through the upheavals of history. Beginning in the 13th Century and making its way towards today, this historically accurate story is the eageryly anticipated debut from Vincent Mahé.
55
pop art: a colorful history
Who better to design a cover for a book about pop art
alastair sooke than Peter Blake? This colourful and excellently laid out design by: design has earnt its place as one of my all time favourites. peter blake publisher's description:
Pop Art is the most important 20th-century art movement. It brought Modernism to the masses, making art sexy and fun with coke cans and comics. Today, in our age of selfies and social networking, we are still living in a world defined by Pop.Full of brand new interviews and research, Sooke describes the great works by Warhol, Lichtenstein and other key figures, but also re-examines the movement for the 21st century and asks if it is still art? He reveals a global story, tracing Pop's surprising origins in 19th-century Paris to uncovering the forgotten female artists of the 1960s.
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how we are
An intriguing cover design concept that left us
vincent deary wanting to know more. Also the slightly hidden
penguin is a genius touch that we loved.
publisher's description:
We live in small worlds. Conscious change requires deliberate effort, and so, for the most part, we avoid it. But what happens when something occurs, from within or without, that changes all that? The first book in the mesmerizing How To Live trilogy, How We Are examines how we negotiate change in our everyday lives - the way we build personal narratives around the people, places and things that surround us, and what happens when our story is disrupted, whether by small acts or profound change. Drawing on personal stories from everyday lives in transition, and a staggering range of literary and cultural references, from Rebecca to Mad Men to Proust, Deary shows us how we can resist being mere habit machines, and make our acts and our lives more fully our own.
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promised you a miracle
We like this cover for its impactful typography
andy beckett combined with the textured and bold use of red and
black to grab a reader's attention.
publisher's description:
The early 1980s in Britain were a time of hope, and of dread: of Cold War tension and imminent conflict, when crowds in the street could mean an ecstatic national celebration or an inner-city riot. Here, Andy Beckett recreates an often misunderstood moment of transition, with all its potential and uncertainty: the first precarious years of Margaret Thatcher's government. By the end of 1982, the country was changing, leaving the kinder, more sluggish postwar Britain decisively behind, and becoming the country we have lived in ever since: assertive, commercially driven, outwardlooking, often harsher than its neighbours.
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seven brief lessons in physics
Rapidly becoming one of our favourite cover designers,
carlo rovelli Bickford-Smith's design for this book is no exception design by: to her brilliant track record for beautiful covers. coralie bickford-smith publisher's description:
These seven short lessons guide us, with simplicity and clarity, through the scientific revolution that shook physics in the twentieth century and still continues to shake us today. In this beautiful and mind-bending introduction to modern physics, Carlo Rovelli explains Einstein's theory of general relativity, quantum mechanics, black holes, the complex architecture of the universe, elementary particles, gravity, and the nature of the mind. In under eighty pages, readers will understand the most transformative scientific discoveries of the twentieth century and what they mean for us. Not since Richard Feynman's celebrated best-seller Six Easy Pieces has physics been so vividly, intelligently and entertainingly revealed.
63
composers: lives and legacies
This unpublished student project by Simone Hill
ava impressed us with its beautiful layout and design by: eyecatching printed style. simone hill description:
An interpretative piece, Composers: Lives and Legacies marries music with graphics to tell the dramatic stories lived by a number of our classical composers. Creative cues were taken from the overlap found within each composer’s life events and musical styles, then adapted to create contemporary imagery to evoke the mood, compositional style and time period of each composer.
65 series review: These new dust jacket designs for J.K Rowling’s eternally juniper's harry potter jackets loved Harry Potter series come from Juniper Books.
Designed for fans who personally identify with a Hogwarts house (although really, who doesn’t?!) each set bears the insignia and colour of a particular house. Accompanied with a little Hogwarts ‘travelling trunk’, this was certainly a genius piece of marketing. However, the recent media attention these covers have received lead some hawk-eyed readers to spot a somewhat embarrassing error on the Ravenclaw series; the designers had featured a raven, rather than an eagle, on the cover. Fear not, this was quickly fixed by Juniper and all designs now seem to have the ‘approval’ of the Harry Potter fan clubs. We are intrigued though, by the method of publishing Juniper Books are employing. The description for these books states: All books are brand new from the publisher, Scholastic, with jackets designed and printed by Juniper Books on a special tear and water resistant paper. The publisher’s traveling trunk is made of durable cardboard. Note that we are not aff iliated with the publisher or author and our custom designs have not been authorized or endorsed by them. Although Rowling doesn’t seem bothered by the rebranding of her books (she retweeted the designs which lead to the media storm of attention), I do wonder what Scholastic’s lawyers make of this enterprising bookseller. Could they have stumbled onto a genius method for second hand booksellers to shift stock, or will they soon be served a cease and desist? After all, the design & 'object' of a book is as much copyright as its content.
penguin's essentials part ii
some serious series inspiration
As any publisher worth their salt knows, redesigning backlist titles can quickly rejuvenate sales, and Penguin certainly are not blind to this fact. They recently released new designs for the Penguin Essentials range, which was first launched last year to much fanfare from the design community and lots of face out spots in bookshelves. The Penguin Blog describes the series as: Books that have stood the test of time, that are still read and loved today, that will change the way you look at things, and linger in your mind long after you’ve turned the final page, redesigned with beautiful, unexpected new covers. The fantastic Penguin design team which worked on the series was made up of art director John Hamilton, deputy art director Lee Motley, senior designer Richard Bravery and designer Gill Heeley.
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69 gender and children’s publishing
If you haven’t heard of Nosy Crow yet, then you’ve
an interview with nosy crow got some atoning to do. The company started in January
2011 as an independent publisher of parent-friendly children’s books and apps, and boy, have they hit the road running ever since. The multi-award winning team focus their business on publishing content that encourages children to read for pleasure – a winning formula that has seen them now rise to be the 16th biggest publisher of children’s books in the UK. Nosy Crow have been garnering media attention recently for their fresh approach to publishing books that challenge stereotypes. Princess Daisy and the Dragon and the Nincompoop Knights features a princess that defeats a menacing dragon (succeeding where all knights had previously failed) and then grows up to become a chess-playing queen. With no husband to come to the rescue or fall in love with, this book reassures its readers that girls belong to themselves and are capable of rescuing themselves, thank you very much. But Princess Daisy isn’t the only book like this on Nosy Crow’s list; there’s a clear dedication to this kind of publishing, so we got in contact to find out more. Kate Wilson, founder and director of Nosy Crow, started her career as a rights seller, going on to hold senior management roles such as MD of Macmillan Children’s books and Group MD of Scholastic UK. We caught up with her to find out more about their habit of publishing children’s books that are more than a little different. Earlier this year you published books with a new take on the average princess story, challenging the idea that princesses have to hang around waiting to be saved. Are books with stories that challenge the norm something that you're moving towards consciously? I think that we’re always looking for something original, and we are always looking for compelling characters. Many of us at Nosy Crow are parents of girls who each went through a pink-fairy-princess phase. I think that’s one of the things that makes us want to find stories that have an element that might make children who are interested in princesses and fairies keen to read (or have books read to them) but that
“I
can’t imagine publishing anything that suggested that girls were inferior or passive or weak.”
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have central characters who are strong, brave, proactive and clever. This is true for picture books like Princess Daisy and the Dragon and the Nincompoop Knights, or Troll Swap by Leigh Hodgkinson and The Fairiest Fairy by Anne Booth: each is about a girl who struggles with what others expect of her, and who triumphs on her own terms nonetheless. Princess Daisy and the Nincompoop Knights challenges stereotypes with its story, although I couldn't help but notice that the cover is pink. Were you tempted at any point to choose another colour? We tried out several different colours! The best contrast for the green dragon was pink. But it’s also true that we wanted to attract exactly the sort of audience who might be drawn to more conventional princess and fairy stories.
that they create: by that stage, they’re at home with the characters and the story. What do you have to pay particular attention to when designing a cover for children? A cover for children has to appeal to a child but also to adults – the parent, librarian or teacher or other adult who is looking for clues. It has to stand out in a book shop. It has to look good without its finishes (foil, spot UV ) when reduced to the size of a postage stamp, so it should be clear, and bold and bright and not too fussy. In your opinion, is it possible (or even important) to create books that aren't targeted at a particular gender?
We publish books that aren’t targeted at a particular gender all the time. Our Pip and Posy books are a good example: in these, there’s a boy rabbit and a girl mouse, Is there anything different that you've had to consider when marketing Princess Daisy and they’re about the emotional rollercoaster of toddler life. Sometimes one makes a (or books similar) in comparison to your mistake or behaves badly, and the other is other books? the peacemaker or the comforter, and I don’t think so. We’re proud of everything sometimes the other. I’d say that the we publish, and I can’t imagine publishing majority of our books particularly the books for younger children, would appeal anything that suggested that girls were equally to boys or girls. inferior or passive or weak. Even in our app retelling of Cinderella, we went for Thank you for your brilliant answers Kate! a non-pneumatic princess, and a prince It’s certainly an extremely interesting who is attracted to Cinderella because she’s a good dancer, has a nice smile and time for children’s publishing, and we’re is easy to talk to, rather than because she hoping that more publishers begin to follow in your footsteps. looks good in a dress. But then I think that we take our responsibilities as Kate has written extensively on these children’s publishers very seriously. subjects, which can be found on the Nosy Crow blog, she adds that since writing At what stage of the production process is these blog posts, though – and this just the cover design thought about? How goes to show that Nosy Crow, like any involved are the illustrators? business, is a work in progress – they’ve stopped describing books as “for boys” The illustrators create the cover image. or “for girls” on their website blurbs. It’s usually the last image for the book
interview: anne jordan by eric wilder
Anne Jordan is a designer and RISD graduate based in Rochester, New York. She was recently listed in Print Magazine’s 2015 New Visual Artists: 15 Under 30. Not only that, along with husband Mitch Goldstein, she designed the cover for the issue. In this interview she details their process, along with other topics related to cover design. What inspired you to become a cover designer? I love reading and have always appreciated book covers, even before I got into graphic design. For my senior project at RISD, I
designed a series of book covers for Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges. I think of book covers as the jewels of American graphic design culture. We don’t have a poster culture like Switzerland for example, and in a way book covers take the place of that. They demonstrate the highest levels of design, are accessible to everyone, and are part of everyday life. I love everything about the format. The challenge of communicating thousands of words in a singular, compact, two-dimensional image. The opportunity to be very expressive
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“I think of book covers as the jewels of American graphic design culture.”
and abstract. The chance to fuse type and image. The intellectually demanding content that invites me to learn about all sorts of interesting topics and ideas. The short but intense timelines – it doesn’t take a year to finish a book cover, just two or three weeks, so I never get bored. I collaborate with my husband Mitch Goldstein on almost everything. We both love working with materials and exploring analog-digital techniques. Book covers are the perfect vehicle to explore this kind of image making. Since graduating from RISD, we have worked together on countless types of projects ranging from websites to annual reports to clothing to catalogs, but I keep coming back to the book cover as my dream job. I have more fun designing book covers than anything else, the format and the process seem to suit my personality well. In preparation for work, how do you familiarize yourself with the source material? The art director sends a pretty detailed brief including a summary of the book and any direction or concepts they want me to explore. I read through the brief carefully and make two lists: (1) a list of things I need to learn more about and (2) a list of key words. Then I’ll go off to the library or online and research everything on list #1 until I feel like I understand the material. I keep adding to list #2 during this process, and making rough sketches of anything that comes to mind. I usually spend an entire day or two doing this research. When I’m done, I have a long list of key words that I use as visual
image curtesy of erica swyler
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“Book covers are the perfect vehicle to explore [...] image making”
directions. These words tell me what processes and materials to start with.
have more ideas than I can possibly execute. As long as I have words, I have visual ideas.
For example, if perspective is an important word on my list, I might use that as a process direction and start by photographing an object or a piece of text from a bunch of different perspectives and see what happens. Often the words direct me to certain materials, too. In my research for The Woman Who Read Too Much, the words unveiling, books, and illumination revealed themselves as being very important. These words told me to work with fabric, paper, hair, and light. Verbal content is rich with visual possibilities, and I capitalize on this by turning the key words into a pile of methods and materials that I can mix and match in my studio.
How much interaction do you have with the author during the process? Generally none – I work with art directors and rarely have any contact with the author, editor, or marketing folks. The art director handles all of that communication. What unique challenges have you discovered in designing book covers?
I think the challenges in making book covers for us has more to do with our process than the specific format of a book cover. The way we work takes a long time, there’s a lot of trial and error, and we can’t predict which ideas are going to work. This Mitch and I have meetings throughout this means we can’t turn something around in three days, we really need a solid two or research phase to prioritize and organize our ideas, using a big wall in our studio as three weeks to focus on one cover. Often we will make hundreds or thousands of a pin up space. We always start with a physical pile of stuff – we hardly ever start images for one project, so editing is a challenge. In order to make one great on the computer. I find that the best way image, we have to sift through tons of to get lots of ideas is to just start making failures and have the patience to keep something even if it isn’t very good. The trying. We have to narrow down many key words are a jumping off point for me gigabytes of options to just a few to show to get into the visual work as soon as to the art director. Mitch is essential in possible, and keep me from wasting time stressing out about the blank page. I always this editing process – he isn’t afraid to kill
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things, and I rely on him quite a bit in this area. Another challenge is anticipating revisions. Sometimes making changes is difficult because of the way our images are constructed – often the entire design is a single photograph of a physical setup, so to change a word could mean starting over from scratch. It’s not usually an easy tweak in Illustrator. Was there ever a cover that seemed to design itself? Not really. It’s never easy, projects never seem to design themselves or fall together quickly. Every project is a process of discovery. We never know from the beginning what the final cover will look like. We do try to listen to our materials and be sensitive to where they are leading us, but no matter how well the content lends itself to a certain material or image, there are a million decisions to make during the process. I tend to get pretty wrapped up in a project and that’s all I think about for the two or three weeks that I’m working on it. Hella Jongerius says in her book Misfit, “When you want to tease secrets out of materials, you need what the Germans so beautifully call Ausdauer (stamina).” Stamina. Even if something looks effortless, it probably wasn’t. It’s comforting to know that even one of the most talented designers in the world recognizes the need for stamina. It’s okay for things to be hard. The key is to keep trying.
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What is the conceptual rationale behind the cover of Capitalism in the Web of Life? Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital argues that the sources of today’s global turbulence have a common cause: capitalism as a way of organizing nature, including human nature. To create this image, we photographed swarms of small glass beads accumulating around letterforms. We spent some time exploring the intricacies of how the beads behave and eventually arrived at a way to integrate them with typography in a physical setup. The beads are abstract enough that they can represent many ideas – capitalism, human population, turbulence, nature. There’s an organic quality to them reminiscent of fish eggs, bubbles, clouds, or outer space. But at the same time, there is a sense of organization, a mass, a swarm that is traveling in a particular direction. The beads behave almost like a school of fish, they want to move together and pile up, accumulating around the type. We were intrigued by the mysterious nature of the image – it’s not immediately recognizable as beads, a viewer might even think the image was created digitally. In fact, the cover is a photograph of a completely physical setup, there is very little digital retouching. Can you explain your creative process for the development of the cover of PRINT Magazine’s 2015 New Visual Artists: 15 Under 30? Print Magazine named me as one of the 2015 New Visual Artists: 15 Under 30, and Debbie Millman asked each of the
winners to design a cover for the issue. The brief was completely open so we could do whatever we wanted. Mitch and I collaborated on this design. We were thrilled that Print Magazine chose our design for the newsstand cover of the issue. We started with the verbal process that I described above, making a list of key words, such as newness, brightness, bling, shiny, trophies, awards. The words led us to investigate all sorts of bright and shiny materials including gold leaf. One of our ideas was to make a cover that was completely blinged out in solid gold. Through various experiments with the gold leaf, we developed a process of raising gilded cut-paper type above a gilded paper background to create a halo-like reflection around the letters that we could capture in a photograph. In theory we were really excited about this – the entire cover was gold, and the phenomena of the reflection technique was fascinating to us – but visually it just didn’t seem to have enough contrast and it didn’t look gold enough. Meanwhile, we had a pile of leftover gilding in our studio. Gilding makes a huge mess and in the process of building the setup described above, the studio became covered with lots of gold leaf flakes. Mitch noticed some of the gold leaf flakes lying on a nearby table. He suggested that perhaps we try focusing on the gold flakes instead of the flat gilded surface. So we used the same gilded text pieces, but changed out the background. We let the process of gilding reveal itself by including the flakes and my hand brushing them away in the photograph. We tried many variations of
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What's your favorite cover that you didn’t this, using both positive and negative framing, and ended up with this final design. design? The final cover wasn’t what we had envisioned form the start – and this is pretty typical of our process. The materials and methods usually lead us in directions that we can’t predict. We are open to this and always keep an eye on our scraps and leftovers to see if better ideas arise. Our finished work almost never looks like our initial sketches. This is part of why we love working with physical materials – we are forced to lose a bit of control, embrace serendipity, work with the physics inherent in the real world, and examine the peculiarities of each material. We sometimes feel as if we are coaxing a design out of a material. If we are patient enough and spend enough time with a material, it is inevitable that something interesting will emerge. How do you gauge the merit of your work? A project has merit for me if it was personally rewarding. I consider a project to be a success if I got something out of it beyond just a paycheck. My goals for every project are to learn something new, experiment with materials and methods that I am curious about, discover a technique or two that I haven’t used before, make something that I am proud of, and enjoy the entire process. If these things happen, the work has merit. I design book covers because it is personally satisfying, not for external reasons. I don’t think about quantifiable metrics such as how many copies of a book is sold.
There are way too many awesome covers out there to pick just one! A few covers that I love are: Obsession, designed by Isaac Tobin and Lauren Nassef The Vladimir Nabokov series design for Vintage Books, art directed by John Gall Dry, designed by Chip Kidd
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the book design studio
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Magazine design by Emma J Hardy Š 2015 The Book Design Studio Copyright on book design images is held by respective designers and publishers