Vintage Versions [Part 2]

And after yesterday's spectrum of Vintages, here's a different approach, coming out in March 2012. For this set of 7 books from the Vintage Classics backlist, the publisher has worked together with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, as part of the museum's ‘British Design 1948 – 2012: Innovation in the Modern Age’ exhibition.

Vintage have hired seven different well-known designers to do covers for the series. I've been able to get hold of six of them.Missing is John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman, with a cover design by milliner Philip Treacy.

Dodie Smith cover by textile designer Celia Birtwell

The only real dud in this lot, designed by Saatchi & Saatchi: it looks a bit as though it took 5 seconds to come up with, and 5 minutes to execute

Ian McEwen design by Wilkinson Eyre Architects

Iris Murdoch cover by fashion designer Zandra Rhodes

Graham Greene design by interior/textile designer Sue Timney

Mark Haddon design by Michael Horsham of Tomato

I would be surprised if this series wasn't at least partly inspired by the Penguin Decades series from last year: Zandra Rhodes was involved in that as well. Oddly enough, her Murdoch design is a somewhat frantic remix of the current cover by Jo Walker.