Wednesday, 9 November 2011

Connections

A recent book which I've ordered and am impatiently awaiting is Craig Brown's One on One. It's one of those simple ideas that nobody had ever come up with until now: a collection of 101 true stories of often unlikely meetings, where each meeting leads on to the next (thus Adolf Hitler is almost killed when John Scott-Ellis hits him with his car in 1931; Scott-Eliis also met Rudyard Kipling; Kipling met Mark Twain, who had an odd encounter with Helen Keller, and so on, looping all the way round to Hitler again at the end). And just for the hell of it, each encounter is described in 1001 words.

How to create a cover for such a complex cast of characters? Well, why not put them all on it, with their connections?

Click to make readable
Very nice indeed. I don't know who to credit, though, since there is no designer listed on the scan of the dustjacket which I've been able to get hold of. The design is by Jo Walker.

5 comments:

  1. Who is 'T. S. Elliot'? Surely not the poet Thomas Stearns ELIOT? You would have thought somebody at the publishing house would have spotted the error.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well spotted--I hadn't seen that! I've checked the final cover, and fortunately they've corrected it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello, I was the designer and I hang my head in shame at my spelling mistake on that one! It was swiftly corrected though.
    Jo Walker

    ReplyDelete
  4. There's no shame in having designed such a lovely, clever distillation of such an interesting book. I've added your credit to the piece. Thanks, Jo!

    ReplyDelete