VINTAGE MURAKAMI
Murakami’s new backlist design uses the circle as a central motif and the palette is limited to red, black and off-white. This creates a strong and consistent identity for the set.
Murakami’s work has a sense that something has been lost or hidden, what is real and what is not. To match this playfulness for the covers, we commissioned Noma Bar, a talented Israeli-born and London-based illustrator. His powerful graphic illustrations cleverly utilise negative space concealing secondary images and illusions. Noma’s illustrations were screenprinted by hand to give them a personal and softer edge.
Noma Bar is represented by Dutch Uncle and can be found here.
Covers Illustrated by Noma Bar (except Birthday Stories and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman).
THE TALE OF RAW HEAD AND BLOODY BONES - Jack Wolf
The year is 1750.
Troubled visionary, twisted genius, loving sadist. What is real and what is imagined in Tristan Hart’s brutal, beautiful and complex world?
We commissioned Daniel Egnéus for his great sense of atmosphere and rich colours. The second illustration shows the endpapers. Daniel is a Swedish illustrator based in Athens, and his latest work was a gothic rendering of the Grimm fairy tale classic The Little Red Riding Hood published by Harper Collins in New York.
See more of his work here and here.
The title font, pasted up from antique scanned lettering runs through the text design in each chapter heading.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
The prize-winning Raised from the Ground is published in English for the first time on November 29th and is a fascinating insight into the early work of this literary giant.
We commissioned Christian Montenegro to work on the cover following our series style established with The Elephant’s Journey.
See more of his work here.
A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA - Anthony Marra
When everything else seems lost, look out for the unexpected ties that bind us together.
A spectacular novel set in a snow-covered village in Chechnya. The intersecting lines and paths are designed to resemble both a forest and a city. They reveal the intricate pattern of connections that binds three unlikely companions together and unexpectedly decides their fate.

A GREAT BIG SHINING STAR
The full, unedited results of a recent photoshoot for the new Niall Griffiths novel to be published in February. To illustrate the highs and lows of surgical enhancement and the cruel cult of fame, we shot the girl’s ‘styling head’ in various stages of distress and degradation, resulting from heating with a blowtorch!
See more work by photographer Mark Vessey here.
FRANCES & BERNARD
We knew from the start that a bold black and white photograph from the period would be just right for the jacket of Frances & Bernard, the story of a profound friendship and bitter-sweet romance between two writers in 1950s America. Eve Arnold’s beautiful shot of a couple with New York in the background had just the right intensity and sweep. The story is told through their letters to one another and the type on the jacket was generated from an old typewriter.
Eve Arnold’s work can be seen alongside that of other celebrated photographers in the current exhibition Another London at Tate Britain. She was one of the great photojournalists of the 20th Century who joined the prestigious Magnum Photos agency in 1951 and died only this year a few months short of her 100th birthday.

VINTAGE 007
Bond, Classic Bond… 06.09.12
VINTAGE 007
Bond, Classic Bond… 06.09.12
Random House welcomes home Ian Fleming with a display of our Vintage Classic covers. Each one was designed using hand-cut lettering, and more about the brief can be seen here.

GOD’S DOODLE
God’s Doodle is the tale of the penis and the ups and downs of history.
‘To possess a penis is to be chained to a madman’ Sophocles
THROUGH THE WINDOW
The cover for a new collection of essays by Julian Barnes, in which he examines British, French and American writers who have meant most to him.
The design incorporates typographic ornaments from the type foundry, Fonderie de Chevillon, 1848.
Publication date: 1st November 2012
PULPHEAD
Dispatches from the other side of America
In this new collection of writing, John Jeremiah Sullivan takes us on a ride through the other side of America and shows us how America really (no, really) lives now.
The cover was painted with scarlet acrylic ink using an adaption of the font Donna.
PARADE’S END & THE GOOD SOLDIER
New covers for Ford Madox Ford novels published this month by Vintage Classics. These black and white covers are details of works by the Swiss painter and printmaker Félix Vallotton (1865-1925). His handling of the woodcut is particularly bold and striking, a modern twist on a traditional technique.
The BBC’s adaptation of Parade’s End starts this Friday 24th August. Written by Tom Stoppard it has a stellar cast of actors including Benedict Cumberbatch and Anne-Marie Duff.

LETTERPRESS
Recently we got back to basics with a day of letterpress. The team at New North Press were fantastic, and here is a short video of one of our efforts.
KILLED COVERS
Earlier in the year we held a Killed Covers exhibition at Booth’s Bookshop during Hay Festival. Showcasing designs that got away, the exhibition featured covers from a range of designers including Jon Gray, Nathan Burton and ourselves.
CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER
Lettering by Steven Bonner for our new Vintage Classics edition of Thomas De Quincey’s original substance abuse memoir.
