Graphic Journey Blog

LOVED COVERS No 20

I'm sure you have all seen the so-called branding for the courier service EVRI that uses a different font for each letter, and over the last half-decade, this style became a design thing that appeared on design festivals, book covers, posters and more. However, 64 years back, the great US designer Ivan Chermayeff Hon RDI created this beautiful cover for a book on the artist Lee Gatch for The American Foundation of Arts (1960). I interviewed Ivan in 2007 about his life and work. To hear it, use this Link.

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The polymath Jonathan Miller also turned his hand to book cover design. Tom Wolff's novel, "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, from 1966, perfectly captures the undulating psychedelic world of the period with its flowing, organic-looking lettering, almost identical to that created to decorate The Korova Milkbar featured in Stanly Kubrick's 'A Clock Work Orange' five years later.   

 

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A disturbing emotion can be conveyed with just a single colour and typeface (and a little brutal manipulation), as here with this cover for Rober Bloch's 'Psycho', designed by Tony Palladino (1930-2014) and published by Simon & Schuster in 1958. And it still works brilliantly 65 years on.

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The touching and strange story of the eminent English poet Edmund Blunden and his love affair in Japan with teacher Aki Hayashi in the 1930s is as much about the fusion of English and Japanese culture as their passion for each other. I have a soft spot for this cover I designed 35 years ago for this tender little story. It was published in 1988 by Macmillan Press.

THANK YOU

To all who have dropped by over the past twelve months. May your year ahead be happy and healthy.

Season's Greetings!

Creative comrades

I am going to collect together a band of sympathetic creatives - a sort of creative community. It will be made up of people I have either commissioned, collaborated with or admire. They will appear in a album on the side bar of this blog. Emails, websites and biographical information will all be there. I know who are and will be picking you off one by one.