Graphic Journey Blog

Intelligent design

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A stacked, seemingly endless manuscript pile perfectly represents David Foster Wallace's unfinished novel. It's not only spot on but reflects the humour of the book. The cover was designed by Jon Grey in 2011 for Hamish Hamilton.

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A book based on an ethnography of immortalist communities—those who believe humans can extend their existence indefinitely through technological means—and an examination of other institutions involved at the end of life. In other words, don't switch the light off. Cover designed by Salamander Hill Design 2020 for the University of Minnesota Press

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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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Even when a designer has to produce a typographical-only cover, the good ones will always look for an additional way to engage the customer, as here with this modest, simple two-colour line production published by Corsair in 2012. Could you tell me if you know the name of the designer?

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When is a typographical cover, not just a typographical cover? When it becomes a concept, as here, displayed on open pages of three books. Designed by Chin Yee-Lai in 2012 and published by W. W. Norton & Company.

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This cover has a perfect two-colour utilitarian feel with a well-chosen image of the always sinister-looking Richard Nixon, greatly heightened by the red overprint. And a neat nod to all the official papers destroyed during the Watergate cover-up. Cover designed by New York City-based Tyler Comrie for Scribe Publications in 2021.

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Dante's 13th-century poem muses on the state of the soul after death. Designer Peter Mendelsund's 2014 idea was to express it simply using colour. Brilliant.

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Landan's epic novel is a tale of love and war for its lead protagonist Lev Perlmutter, a German Jew whose duty and self-discovery begins in 1914 when he fought in the 1st World War and expands on to the second war. These two images, butted together, is an elegant and cinematic way to reflect memory. Janet Hansen designed the cover for Pantheon Books in 2015.

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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.