Aug 1, 2013

 

SOLO - A James Bond Novel

We are delighted to reveal the cover for the new James Bond novel, Solo by William Boyd.

Our Creative Director Suzanne Dean talks through the design process below:

‘In the book, Bond goes on an unauthorised solo mission recklessly motivated by revenge. I’d always been hoping that there might be a way to use the two o’s within Solo and link it to the zeros in 007. I used the font Folio, a sans-serif font designed by Konrad Bauer and Walter Baum in 1957 which became popular during the sixties, and which we used on our Vintage Classics 007 series. It has a strong circular ‘o’ in its bold version, which formed an important feature within the design. Shadows thrown by the overlaying letters suggest hidden danger and tension, whilst the final ‘o’ in Solo suggests a door or an escape route. The die cut holes in the dust jacket are an abstraction of bullet holes, and represent a pivotal part of the novel. They also reveal a flash of the red binding below; which playfully reveals a gecko – a reference to Bond’s African mission in the book – and burn holes from the bullets, giving drama and an interactive expression to the whole package.’

You can see a set of our Vintage 007 Classics here.

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