Penguin and Faber each commissioned covers from a whole different range of contemporary designers, but Weidenfeld & Nicolson went down a somewhat different route, and commissioned the powerhouse of advertising that is Fallon, to design their special set of books.
Famous for throwing bouncy balls down hills and teaching gorillas to play the drums, Fallon are a very big name in the advertising world, but when it comes to designing books, well, they've never done it before. Despite their lack of experience in this field, Fallon were keen to show that they can do more than just advertising.
“This project was a great opportunity to showcase the department’s passion for craft and design above and beyond traditional advertising briefs.”
Mark Elwood, creative director of Fallon Design (from Creative Review, August 2009)
Apparently Fallon had the entire design department and all their art directors working on the brief, so they ended up with about 30-40 different concepts for the design of the books. From all these ideas, they settled on one, and the finished design looks a little bit like this:
The full set (image from CR)
Each cover is made from raw uncoated board which gives them a great tactile quality, and provides some visual consistency to the set, whilst still allowing each book to look individual thanks to a die-cut window in the center of each one. Through this cut out shape in the cover you can see the vibrant artwork of the front/end papers, each of which was created by a different artist.
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Two of the covers with the end papers visible through the die-cut windows
The full end paper for 'The Siege of Krishnapur' created by Mikko Rantanen
The set isn't perfect, I think there are a couple of weak covers in there, such as Lolita and The Color Purple, but the rest I think are great, and as a whole the set looks brilliant. I think Fallon have done a really impressive job, with a design concept just as impressive as the ones shown by Penguin and Faber, and they have shown that they are capable of more than just advertising.
Looking at the works of Penguin, Faber, and Weidenfeld & Nicolson, I think the equation "Books + Anniversaries = Good Design" is fairly accurate. And I've only looked at publishers of prose and fiction. If we look further afield, specialist art and design publishers Thames and Hudson also turn 60 this year, and they too have done something special to celebrate. Not to mention Taschen, who have shamelessly been slapping the number 25 all over their books recently to mark their 25th anniversary.
I can't wait for the next set of publishing milestones to roll around and see what other great pieces of design crop up as a result.
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Books + Anniversaries = Good Design
Part I: Penguin
Part II: Faber & Faber
Part III: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
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