This jacket illustrates how good designers immerse themselves in a book’s message and milieu. Rejecting the image originally supplied with the manuscript, the designer here based his final abstract design on contemporary styles, using Futura and Gill Sans fonts and images reflecting Surrealist exhibition notepaper and work by the avant-garde artist David Bomberg. This cultural knowledge and sensitivity notwithstanding, a keen practical eye led him to make the backdrop black instead of white so that the book title is clearly legible.
Here is another of several potential designs for this forthcoming publication for the British Academy. The many versions under consideration for this title is typical of the collaborative working practices between publisher, author and cover designer.
This jacket showcases the imaginative and transformative skills of designers. Initially tasked to create a portrait front cover, the designer insisted a map would better reflect the book’s message. Armed with guidance from Bourchier’s project manager about the book’s key content, the designer honed in on the town of Abyei between Sudan and South Sudan. As the hostilities of the two nations lie at the heart of this book, the designer used a black gradient effect to ensure a reader’s eye was drawn to the centre of the conflict.
Bourchier creates bespoke book designs and jackets, carefully sculpted for their relevance to the book’s content, sometimes in abstract terms to represent the essence of that content visually to maximum effect. Everything from subtle variations in colour to font selection can impact on the tone of a cover, and our designers are experts at working with such subtleties to create attractive and thought-provoking layouts.