Artists & Illustrators 33HOW TO CREATE
GREAT BOOK COVERS
Designer and
art director
Luke Bird has
designed book
covers for Faber
& Faber and
was also
shortlisted in
the non-fiction
category of the
Academy of
British Cover
Design Awards 2017. Here, he
shares his advice on the trade•READ No matter how good the brief is,
it’s difficult to create a great cover and get
the tone right without reading the book
itself. Added to this, as creatives, part
of our skill set is picking up on small
visual details or themes which might
inform the design.•RE SE ARCH What appeals to the book’s
intended audience? I always try to be
aware of trends, but not wedded to them.
There’s every chance this year’s favoured
colour, imagery or type style will feel
over-used in a few months’ time.•EXPLORE While the tone and content
informs image choice on a basic level, one
of the joys of designing books is that we
are often permitted to explore all artistic
media. I might use an existing image,
illustration or painting, or a commission.•IMPAC T Books have to stand out on
crowded tables in a bookshop or in a busy
online store. Using surprising colour
combinations, as I did when I worked on
Ghachar Ghochar, might help attract
attention. Colour can also inform the tone.
The language is rich and vibrant, and that
can be inspiring. There’s a nod to the
publisher’s heritage, with an anarchic
twist to the layout and fluorescent pink
Pantone to make it scream.•LONGEVITY If paired with imagery,
sympathetic typography is often better
than a typeface that will fight for
attention. In this case, I tend to choose
a ‘classic’, such as Helvetica or Gill Sans,
which are clean, clear, timeless and very
well designed.
Find out more about Luke’s work at
http://www.lukebird.co.ukBOOK ILLUSTRATION
What was your starting point for illustrating
Mansfield Park?
Books by the Folio Society are arranged so
that each illustration is closely related to a
certain passage. I needed to choose
particular moments to work with. But I think
that you can’t draw a book illustration
without a feeling for the whole story. You
need to know what happened before the
episode and what will happen next.Why did you decide to work digitally for this
particular project?
I thought it should be quite simple, so as
not to cause any inconvenience in printing.
The illustrations were created in Adobe
Photoshop and it was my first experience of
drawing colour illustration without using any
traditional materials.Did you approach the cover
and inside pages separately?
I learned that the book should
be treated as a single
organism – from the cover to
layout. My aim was to follow
the existing style of the society’s
Jane Austen series. I had to workThe winner of this year’s Book Illustration Competition – a partnership between
the House of Illustration and the Folio Society – talks to Natalie Milner about
creating the society’s beautiful new edition of Jane Austen’s Mansfield ParkDarya Shnykina
with a given colour palette – three colours- and gradually I began to use other shades.
What influences impacted your designs?
The whole atmosphere [of the illustrations]
was the personality of Jane Austen. When I
begin to work on any illustration project, I
search for helpful materials, in this case it
was art from the Regency era.What’s your favourite book cover?
I’m crazy about exploring bookstores and
libraries. Some of my favourite covers are the
Vintage Classics Brontë series. The covers
look so silent, but also so full of emotions.What’s your top tip for getting into book
illustration?
All I can say is that you need
to be passionate about
what you do. I adore
books in all their
manifestations.
The Folio Society’s
Mansfield Park is out
in October 2017. Follow
Darya on Instagram
@daryashnykinaDarya’s tip
Work on daily
drawing. The more
you draw, the more
you see and feel
the illustration
© DARYA SHNYKINA/FOLIO SOCIETY >26 Illustration.v6.indd 33 10/04/2017 15:20