Just like Penguin did for their 70th anniversary, Faber commissioned different designers/illustrators for each of the covers (plus a few of them were done in-house). However, unlike Penguin, the brief was a bit more strict; Faber wanted each cover to represent a classic design from their past. Over the last 80 years they have had a very rich design history, incorporating many different styles and trends, and they wanted these new covers to act as a tribute to their past. Faber describe the set as "Landmark debuts with classic designs".
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Four of the ten Faber Firsts covers which hark back to designs of the past
Each cover represents a different era of Faber's design heritage, inspired by some of their most famous and prolific dust-jacket designers such as Berthold Wolpe and Hookway Cowles. Faber's 'Eighty Years of Book Cover Design' is a treasure trove of past designs (also published this year to mark their anniversary), and just flicking through the pages of the book you can see where much of the inspiration came from for these ten Faber Firsts covers.
For example, the rough brush style of Berthold Wolpe's original Faber jackets was clearly the influence for this cover of 'Lord of the Flies', designed by Darren Wall:
 Wolpe's original cover design |  Darren Wall's cover as part of the Faber Firsts series |
And the confident hand rendered typographic approach for the cover of Peter Carey's 'Bliss' was clearly inspired by the original cover for 'Sibelius', a music book published by Faber in the 60s:
 The original |  The 2009 version |
Admitedly, not every single cover stands out as a brilliant piece of graphic design, but as a set I think they work really well together, and they do a great job of representing the different design eras of Faber's past. Here are the rest of the covers in the set, and a couple of comments from the designers:
 | 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. |
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 | 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 (also from WBQ) |
However, Faber & Faber aren't stopping there, they're doing a lot more to celebrate their 80th anniversary. As well as Faber Firsts, they have also released a poetry collection, consisting of six books, each one featuring a selection of works by a classic poet. The works featured have all been hand picked by contemporary poets and authors, and more importantly, the covers have each been created by contemporary print makers.
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The six covers of the Faber 'Poetry Classics' set
As you can see, the monochrome covers each feature some great detailed illustrations, made using traditional methods such as woodcut and linocut design. The only one I don't like is the W. H. Auden cover which lacks the detail and the charm that the others have, but in general I think this is another very nicely designed set of books. They even come sporting matching end-papers:
The matching front/end papers of the Poetry books (images from Creative Review)
And it doesn't end there. Oh no. Faber are launching yet another set of books to celebrate their 80th anniversary. This time it's the complete works of Samuel Beckett, together for the first time in one collection. They've gone for the purely typographic approach (something I usually love), typeset in a bespoke face created specially for this set of books (sounds great so far), designed by London studio a2/sw/hk (oh dear, what a ridiculous name for a design studio).
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Four of Faber's covers from the Samuel Beckett collection
Unfortunately, these books simply don't excite me nearly as much as the others; I don't particularly like the bespoke typeface, nor the way that the type runs off the edges of the pages. According to a2/sw/hk:
"[Each cover] uses a bespoke cover font that comes in four weights, while the book’s title runs vertically to allow for the use of large point sizes. Parts of the titles bleed off the edges to add “tension” to the design".
From Creative Review, May 2009
Hmm, not sure about that "tension" they're on about there. There are 20 titles in total, although only five have been published so far, with the rest to follow gradually between now and Spring 2011. To see the full set of covers, head over to RobAroundBooks.
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Two more the typographic Beckett covers
So that's three different sets of books specially created to celebrate Faber & Faber's 80th anniversary, two featuring some very good design, and one with some OK design. For the final part of this series I'll look at how Weidenfeld & Nicolson used a different approach to design to help commemorate their 60th birthday.
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Books + Anniversaries = Good Design
Part I: Penguin
Part II: Faber & Faber
Part III: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
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