Turning a Cliche into Something Completely New

It's always best to avoid cliches, in design as in writing. But what if you're smart enough to take a cliche--a book about evolution using the image of the ascent of man--and turn it into something completely new? See David Drummond's cover for a poetry book linking evolutionary theory with Christian spirituality.

A great idea, wonderfully executed. For an interview with David Drummond, see here.

An Interview with David Drummond

You NEED to click to see a bigger version of these gorgeous covers

One of the best book designers working today, and a regular and deserved winner of accolades and awards, Canadian David Drummond was kind enough to agree to be the latest victim in this series of interviews. When selecting images to accompany this interview, it was incredibly hard to make choices: visit his Salamander Hill Design website or his blog, and you'll find beautiful cover after beautiful cover.

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CAUSTIC COVER CRITIC: What's your design background? How long have you been doing book design?

DAVID DRUMMOND: I have a degree in Graphic Design and worked for about 8 years doing corporate design before starting book cover designs.

CCC: Most of the photographs you use in your book covers seem to be your own, rather than stock images. Why do you prefer working this way?

DD: I would probably describe my work as photo/illustration and I find I have the most control over final outcome if I photograph it myself and then really get to work in Photoshop.




CCC: Some of the books you've done covers for seem like the sort of thing that, at first, would make most people go, 'How the hell am I going to do this?' (I'm thinking of books such as Mapping Marriage Law in Spanish Gitano Communities), even though the final covers you come up with are really clever. Do you have a specific process for books whose title/theme doesn't immediately suggest something visual?


DD: I am sort of a victim of my own success I guess, because I often get covers where the first line of the brief is, “We couldn’t think of an image and thought your conceptual approach would be perfect for this.” When they are really tough, like another book on multiculuralism in Canada, I just start off by saying, “OK, how can you find a solution that puts a new twist on it?”

CCC: Can you tell us a bit more about working on the 'Parker' novel covers? Are you doing the rest of the series as they're brought back into print? And what's it like doing a matching series rather than a book cover which stands on its own?

DD: I just did three more in this series and as far as I know there will be more next season.

I really like working on series and try to always find an original way to tie all the books together without being too monolithic. I originally wanted to commission illustrations for the Parker series but because of budget constraints decided to do the illustrations myself.

CCC: What's it like presenting several possibilities to a publisher, and have them choose the one you least like? How common is this?

DD: To be honest, for most of the publishers I work with I start off presenting only one concept. For the times when it is rejected it gives me a clear idea of how to re-orient and get closer to the right solution. I would say 70 percent of the time my first presented concept is the one that makes it all the way through.
Above: David's first nine covers for the 'Art of Living' series from Acumen in the UK
Below: A great cover that ended up unused



For the publishers that ask for multiple concepts, I always state my recommendation. If it isn’t chosen at least I feel like I presented my case. One of the pitfalls of presenting multiple concepts is that you are not there to defend them, and you are really leaving it up to a committee to decide with no chance to rebut. A really strong direction could be killed because someone doesn’t like orange.

CCC: What's your favourite rejected cover?

DD: I am not sure that I have a favourite rejected cover. I don’t really consider them covers unless they are printed.


Two very-much-not-rejected covers: the Striphas cover makes use of a book dunked in water and then 'sculpted' into shape

CCC: Are there any other book designers do you admire?

DD: Too many to list. There really are a lot of great cover designers working today.


CCC: Ever been asked to design/cover/illustrate a book you couldn't stand?

DD: No. But there have been books where I really do think I made the book look more interesting than it really is.

CCC: Thank you, Mr Drummond!


Fame at last for David's dog, Beau.

Parker & Drummond

A visit to the excellent and thoughtful Ivebeenreadinglately drew my attention to the lovely new covers for the first three Richard Stark 'Parker' novels, which I've been meaning to read for ages, and now have no excuse to neglect.





These covers are by David Drummond, who maintains a fascinating blog about his work as a book cover design: required reading for cover obsessives like myself. Here are a bunch of his recent covers, culled from that blog, including a few that didn't make the cut, but which I think are excellent. Visit the blog for the background stories on all of these...AND MORE! Pleasingly, Drummond does most of his own photography, rather than relying on stock image libraries. And let's face it--anyone who can produce an elegant and witty cover for a book entitled Mapping Marriage Law in Spanish Gitano Communities is doing something right.