BIRDS AND THE BEES - Various authors
Timorous Beasties have collaborated with Vintage to produce a series of five books on Nature writing.
Timorous Beasties were established in 1990 by Glasgow School of Art graduates, Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons. Noted for their unique and provocative textiles, their work has been described as “ William Morris on acid” or “Damien Hirst on Ovaltine”. Bright, bold, surreal and highly detailed their patterns have a chic irreverence. Traditionally, wallpaper patterns have romanticised nature. Timorous Beasties work subverts this. Close inspection reveals a web of ornate detail filled with surprising and sinister surprises, like the dead bird in the hawk’s claws.
The design of a simple san serif panel enables the elaborate illustration to take centre stage. The illustration spills over onto the flaps which align with the vibrant endpapers.
We asked Paul Simmons about his work on the project:
Can you explain your illustration process?
The process I always use, which is the most basic way of drawing, is to hand draw black onto white paper. After that, I then scan the drawings into the computer. Nothing fancy. I then separate the drawing from the white, and piece the different bits together, then colour them up, it can all take rather a long time. We had a pretty clear idea for the background for all the books, and it was going to work very much like some of our wallpapers, where there are different repeats at different scales of pattern. This allowed us to create the full design for the cover, getting less busy on the flaps and endpapers (the inside of the cover). It is easier to work with the drawings on the computer, in case you need to re-do, or trace what you have done. People tend to think of computers as taking away from one’s ‘creativity’, but computers are just another tool, and they don’t make you any less creative.
How did you decide what colours were what books?
For colouring the books, I just coloured according to what felt right. So yellow for the bees relates to their colouring and also to honey; the goshawk and its steely grey colouring, and cold calculating ruthless killing, are echoed in the grey-blue background of H is for Hawk.
What do you use as reference for the birds and bees?
I have always had a bit of a thing for our feathered friends, and so over the years I have collected lots of reference books, but my main reference was from the series’ on Natural History by Lisars, a printer originally based in Edinburgh, around the 1840’s. They started working with James John Audubon on the ‘Birds of America’, (although it ended up being printed in France), the tiny hand coloured, beautifully printed plates, were a great inspiration. I think I enjoyed working on the goshawk most – it’s such a majestic bird.
Was there anything different about working on a book jacket design?
It was great working on book jackets, it’s different in that you need to get a feel for the book. The aesthetic has to work in quite a different way, it has to give the atmosphere, have impact and at the same time be rather small! Also working on a series, we had to find a way to bring these five very different books together.
The Birds and the Bees series of books are published by Vintage Classics on May 5th.
