Desolation

The book is a look at early-'70s Britain, economically wrecked, incompetently run (the government of the day declared no fewer than five states of emergency over a four-year period) and terrorist-plagued. Some living there now might wonder what has changed. But what gets me here is the cover. It's like something out of Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

The photo is the work of John Bulmer, and it's of a Manchester street in the early 1970s.

See more of Bulmer's work here. I don't yet know the book's designer, but they're very clever indeed.

UPDATE: The designer is the excellent Jim Stoddart.

This is How to Do It

You're a publisher printing a series of classic books to raise money for AIDS relief (through the (RED) organisation). You want them to be eye-catching and beautiful. You make them look like these--absolutely stunning. (Click for huge versions.)

 

  

  

  

  

  

 

I asked Jim Stoddart, Art Director at Penguin Press, about who did each cover and how they came about. This is what he had to say: "We’re starting with a series of 8 titles in this collaboration with the Aids awareness fund (RED), with the prospect of putting more titles into this series in the near future. Each cover switches the usual black of Penguin Classics for the (RED) red and instead of using an image we’re using a quote from the text of the book, and I’m aiming to commission a unique typographer for each cover."

The designers responsible are as follows:

Anna Karenina designed by Fuel
Dracula designed by Non-Format
Great Expectations designed by Stefanie Posavec (Penguin Press Art Dpt)
The House of Mirth designed by Nathan Burton
Notes From Underground designed by Gray318 (Jon Gray)
The Secret Agent designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith (Penguin Press Art Dpt) (interviewed here)
Therese Raquin designed by Jim Stoddart (Penguin Press Art Dpt)
The Turn of the Screw designed by Studio Frith

I promised myself I would not buy books I already owned even if the new covers were amazing. But then again, this is for charity...