Saturday 12 September 2009

Design news


I've had some correspondence with noted British designer Arnold Schwartzman, friend of Len Deighton and co-author with him of Airshipwreck. Arnold has been commissioned by Len and Harper Collins to design the front covers of the new Len Deighton book reissues (see postings below).

His new designs for the forthcoming reissues of the first four "Harry Palmer" novels feature on the back inside cover of the first four reissued books and they look great - montages of sixties ephemera laid out on different chess boards, each pointing towards different themes in the complex plots developed by Deighton for his classic agent character. The library at the University of the Creative Arts in Maidstone, Kent is to hold an exhibition of some of the props from these new cover designs.

Arnold tells me that his wife had a lot of fun searching across eBay for the items for each book front cover, which will be out in October (I'm anticipating my copies with great interest). He writes that he already has a concept in mind for the "Game, Set and Match" series (due out for Father's Day next year); Ray Hawkey's original designs for these books - based around knives thrust into apples - is iconic, so I can't wait to see how Arnold chooses to interpret these classic stories.

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