Features

New York Trilogy
by Paul Auster

I grew up around old Faber books. In particular Bernhard Wolpe's cover designs for the books of Lawrence Durrell or the poems of Sylvia Plath. It was therefore a great honour to be asked to pay homage to part of Faber's amazing design heritage. I was given the task of designing a cover that reflects some of the very graphic, 2 colour solutions that have been produced throughout the years, particularly from the 40s through to the early 60s. My cover is a simple graphic attempt to illustrate 3 stories with 2 colours. The bars cross to create the third colour and the type runs in the diamond spaces created in between.

Jonathan Gray / gray318, designer


The White Castle
by Orhan Pamuk

I wanted to create a very classic 1950's look inspired by the illustrations of Hookway Cowles. The style is extremely flat and the drawing almost looks as if it has been screen printed. Interestingly to recreate this flat 50's quality I turned to modern digital techniques as I could layer one image evenly on top of another without adding dimension. The presence of a Carpathian style castle on top of a mountain is intended to convey an aura of mystery and drama. The full moon heightens the sense of atmosphere and also suggests that all things can be revealed even in the black of the night

Robert Venables, Illustrator


The Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath

I wanted my cover to be beautiful but also slightly unnerving which reflected the lead character of Esther Greenwood. The images choice also had to convey a sense of time. Place is important to the narrative but my feeling was this was a story about people.  The main figure on the cover had soft curves to it but also had a vulnerability due to the state of undress. Having the image on a blank background also suggested Esther’s isolation. The placement on the cover was an important one. Having the figure running of the page gave the cover sense of unease and also hinted at the great journey that Esther takes. Type wise I wanted something of the time but with a modern twist, that had both hard edges but smooth curves. The font was also adapted slightly to give more style and originality.

Mark Swan, Designer


Lord of the Flies
by William Golding

I was asked to tackle this cover in the rough brush style of Berthold Wolpe, Faber's dust jacket artist that began Faber's design legacy. Trying to ignore the weight of all this history and expectation I set about duplicating his brush letterforms and experimenting with rough graphic block of raw colour. I eventually produced eight possible covers, the chosen one referencing the fire motif from the novel which represents the fear and paranoia which all the boys are become engulfed by.

Darren Wall, Creative Director, Wallzo


Bliss
by Peter Carey

This strong, single-word title called for a bold typographic approach without the need for an explanatory image. The reference for this design is the 1960s Faber Music cover for Sibelius, which combines confident hand-lettering with Albertus, the Faber typeface.

Eleanor Crow, Senior Designer, Faber & Faber


Such a Long Journey
by Rohinton Mistry

My aim was to retain the delicate texture and colouring of the Barnett Freedman’s design for Behold, This Dreamer. However, I ran the grain of the pink/peach background vertically rather than horizontally to emphasise the strength of the torrential Bombay rain through which the figure is scurrying in the illustration. It had to look as dark and grainy and wet as possible.

Neil Gower


The Barracks
by John MacGahern

The starting point for this title was the stark black and white photography and condensed grotesque typefaces used on 1960s kitchen-sink plays and fiction from the Faber archive, although the look is somewhat softened.

Eleanor Crow, Senior Designer, Faber & Faber

A Pale View of the Hills
by Kasuro Ishiguro

This design was inspired by the early Faber use of Gill’s Perpetua and the engravings of mid-century superstars like Edward Bawden for the books of Stephen Spender and Louis MacNiece. Ishiguro’s book is set in post-war Nagasaki so I also looked at the work of early 20th century Japanese artist Takehisa Yumeji for the illustrative element.

Miriam Rosenbloom, Senior Designer, Faber & Faber


The Buddha of Suburbia
by Hanif Kureishi

The inspiration for this design were books such as Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, as well as Imitations and For the Union Dead, both by Robert Lowell. All designed by Berthold Wolpe, these are typically type-led, using flat colour and geometric shapes to create a striking effect. For the cover itself, I wanted something that represented the collision of cultures featured in the book, so I enlarged elements of the Union Jack and replaced the blue and red with orange and green from the Indian flag.

Alex Kirby, Senior Designer, Faber & Faber


Cover Her Face
by P. D. James

We took the wonderful work of renowned illustrator Edward Ardizzone as a basis. He produced many illustrations for Faber books during the 1940s and 50s including Walter de la Mare’s wonderful Peacock Pie. Contemporary illustrator Piers Sanford then created a fantastic illustration recalling both the design of Faber jackets of that period and Ardizzone’s work.

Faber Design Dept

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