Graphic Journey Blog

HAVE A GOOD ONE.

To all who have dropped by over the past year, many thanks. May you all have a healthy and prosperous 2024. And let's hope for peace in the increasing and tragic war zones.

LOVED COVERS No.16.

A simple but beautiful way of expressing a city suffocating the life out of a woman. Cover by New York-based designer Paul Sahre for W. W. Norton & Company (2019).

LOVED COVERS No.15

This witty design by Barcelona-based Javier Jaén uses just one colour overprinted onto the binding case for this book on the master of movie title design, Saul Bass (1920 -1996). Published by Gràffica in 2011.

LOVED COVERS No.14

LOVED COVERS No.14: Visit any bookshop, and you'll be accosted by a stack of 'personality' publications. 90% follow the predictable formula: full-beed mugshot, overly large type, and quotes. So, it's refreshing to see the occasional alternative approach even if you have to go back 35 years when Mark Farrow RDI designed this cover, and it still looks fresh. World International Publishing (1988)

LOVED COVERS No.13

LOVED COVERS No.13: What better way to tempt the Count than a beautiful, tempting female neck (in this case, by 19th-century painter Lord Frederic Leighton). But the sensual cropping and understated typography is by NYC-based cover designer Megan Wilson. Published by Vintage Classics 2011.

LOVED COVERS No.12

LOVED COVERS No.12: The second half of my publishing decade was in paperbacks with Fontana. I regularly commissioned Tony Meeuwissen RDI, one of the few conceptual designers/illustrators I would call an analogue genius. I treated his work with extra care when going through the approval process. All the cover designs he did for me back then remained intact without any change. This one was for Fontana (1977). Read a feature I wrote about Tony Meeuwissen in 'EYE' magazine  HERE: 

LOVED COVERS No.11

LOVED COVERS No.11: New York-based designer Carin Goldberg was responsible for this almost clinical information graphics style cover but with a touch of humour, cleverly picking up on the book's funny and irreverent nature. Published by Penguin Books 2008.

LOVED COVERS No.9

LOVED COVERS No.9: This is my copy of Jenny Offill's beautifully written book about a seemingly well-peiced-together marriage until it starts to fall apart. This well-crafted cover, with its modest typography, by current standards, allows the idea to shine. It is one of designer Jon Gray's best. Granta 2014.

LOVED COVERS No.10

LOVED COVERS No.10: I joined William Heinemann as art director in 1968; two of the first designers I wanted to work with were John Gorham and Bentley/Farrell/ Burnett. Neither was happy to design just the front cover; they had to do everything from flap to flap. I wrote a feature article on B/F/B for 'Eye' magazine (Link below). This one by B/F/B shows the front and back of a cover they designed for me in 1969. They had a great love of Art Deco, which was perfect for this book. LINK

LOVED COVERS No 7

LOVED COVERS No 7: I imagined this quiet, delicate little indie cover being hemmed in by all those bullying books adorned with colour, quotes and crap, shouting, "LOOK AT ME!" Ridley's book is the touching story of his sports-reporting wife, Vikki Orvice, who died of cancer at the age of 56. The falling bail dislodged from the stumps is the perfect visual metaphor for this book of love, loss and negotiating grief through watching cricket. Published by Floodlit Dreams in 2020, it was designed by Steve Leard.