Covers Spotlight
Jessica Au from Readings St Kilda rounds up the best in new book design for the next instalment of our irregular covers appreciation series.
Sepia tones and an image of old-fashioned domesticity is jacked up and electrified by a bright blue blue diagonal here - and one that actually looks even more striking in the print edition that the digital. Somehow the two elements just manage the to reach the perfect level of pull and contrast.
Another bright, bold outing by the ever-brilliant Jon Gray, who, among others, designed a series of covers for Jonathan Safran Foer. Be sure to check out his impressive backlist here.
Some lovely, muted minimalism for Taeko Tomioka’s brilliant novel, Building Waves, about Kyoko, an independent Japanese writer in her early forties and the traditional, conservative ‘salary-man’ she ends up have a somewhat peculiar relationship with. The moments are sometimes comic, sometime awkward, but always observant on sex, social niceties and gender politics.
And, lastly, the brilliant, bleak, cover of László Krasznahorkai’s Satantango by Paul Sahre - again, you almost have see this one in actuality to get a sense of the understated brilliance here. A bright, white, slightly raised line cutting dramatically across the grey type, which, against the black hardback, makes it appear almost fluorescent. Sahre incidentally also did the brilliant New Directions quartered paperbacks of Clarice Lispector’s Near To The Wild Heart, The Passion According To G.H, Água Viva and A Breath Of Life
