PROJECT FACTFILE
BRIEF: La Boca received an open brief – to read the book and interpret
it through eight images. The Folio Society wanted the project to work
like an art project, so the images would be the illustrators’ reactions to
the story. The binding would be cloth-bound, housed in a slipcase but
how this would look was completely open.
THE ILLUSTRATORS: La Boca, http://site.laboca.co.uk
THE PUBLISHERS: The Folio Society, http://www.foliosociety.com
PROJECT LAUNCH: May 2019
PROJECT DURATION: One yearTOM WALKER
Publishing director,
The Folio Society
Tom Walker curates the list of
titles he and the editorial and
production teams at The Folio
Society will turn into editions
that readers will want to see,
hold and read. Walker also
commissions new introductions
to the books that aim to enrich
the reader’s experience.COMPUTERARTS.CREATIVEBLOQ.COMSEPTEMBER 2019 LA BOCA FOR FOLIO SOCIETY
THE CONCEPT
By Tom Walker and Raquel Leis Allion
Ubik is one of Philip K Dick’s great novels. It’s
overspilling with ideas and exceptionally strong
visual language, so it felt like the perfect book
to illustrate. His central premise of time slipping
at variable rates is illogical, unthinkable and
undefinable, yet he walks an incredibly clever
narrative tightrope, which keeps sheer absurdity
at bay. His obsession with antitheses – of realty
and unreality, of real and fake – defines much of
his work and Ubik is no exception. It’s a brilliant,
exciting and very relevant book.
We wanted to work with La Boca because
of the way it uses strong concepts and graphic
imagery. A lot of the studio’s work has a
futuristic feel about it and somehow it’s able
to illustrate psychological moods – the perfect
combination for Ubik.
Our briefs are pretty open and we tend to
choose artists who can take projects further
than any prescribed brief. We asked La Boca
to read Ubik and send over scene selections
that it would like to illustrate for eight images