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Something like 5 years ago, we participated in a Lolita book cover contest held by renowed LA architect, John Bertram. We didn't win but our entry was highly praised and more talked about than the winning entry. We were contacted recently to provide yet another artwork size to be printed in a publication.
John Gall, vice president and art director at Vintage/Anchor Books and designer of the latest cover of Lolita (see samples of his work here), kindly agreed to review the submissions and picked his own top choices. His favorite is by Suzene Ang of Singapore:
”It takes a second before you see what is going on. It’s abstract enough to keep it metaphorical, yet literal enough to imply a sense of story. I love the tease of having the type run up the leg. Elegant, with a sense of humor.”
Gall made a point a few times of stressing the difficulty of the task:
“This is a tough assignment. So many clichéd images to either avoid or make new. Not an easy task. I teach a cover design class and wouldn’t give this as an assignment in a million years!”
TUESDAY OCTOBER 13TH, 2009
A Makeover for Lolita
A while back, I linked to a contest to redesign the cover of Nabokov’s Lolita. We now have a winner. It is not the cover at left. That one is by Suzene Ang of Singapore, and it was chosen as best not by John Bertram, who sponsored the contest, but by John Gall, a brilliant designer and art director at Vintage/Anchor. He said: “It takes a second before you see what is going on. It’s abstract enough to keep it metaphorical, yet literal enough to imply a sense of story. I love the tease of having the type run up the leg. Elegant, with a sense of humor.”
I like his choice more than the grand prize winner, but I can see why it didn’t appeal most to Bertram. One of Bertram’s big complaints about previously published covers was that they focused on Lolita’s sexuality and “serve[d] to re-traumatize the poor girl all over again.” The winner he chose, Lyuba Haleva of Bulgaria, pleased him by focusing on Humbert: “Somehow it all feels right to me and very inspired, and although the typeface is anachronistic and suggests to me a classic European novel, it seems to work.”
Something like 5 years ago, we participated in a Lolita book cover contest held by renowed LA architect, John Bertram. We didn't win but our entry was highly praised and more talked about than the winning entry. We were contacted recently to provide yet another artwork size to be printed in a publication.
John Gall, vice president and art director at Vintage/Anchor Books and designer of the latest cover of Lolita (see samples of his work here), kindly agreed to review the submissions and picked his own top choices. His favorite is by Suzene Ang of Singapore:
”It takes a second before you see what is going on. It’s abstract enough to keep it metaphorical, yet literal enough to imply a sense of story. I love the tease of having the type run up the leg. Elegant, with a sense of humor.”
Gall made a point a few times of stressing the difficulty of the task:
“This is a tough assignment. So many clichéd images to either avoid or make new. Not an easy task. I teach a cover design class and wouldn’t give this as an assignment in a million years!”
TUESDAY OCTOBER 13TH, 2009
A Makeover for Lolita
A while back, I linked to a contest to redesign the cover of Nabokov’s Lolita. We now have a winner. It is not the cover at left. That one is by Suzene Ang of Singapore, and it was chosen as best not by John Bertram, who sponsored the contest, but by John Gall, a brilliant designer and art director at Vintage/Anchor. He said: “It takes a second before you see what is going on. It’s abstract enough to keep it metaphorical, yet literal enough to imply a sense of story. I love the tease of having the type run up the leg. Elegant, with a sense of humor.”
I like his choice more than the grand prize winner, but I can see why it didn’t appeal most to Bertram. One of Bertram’s big complaints about previously published covers was that they focused on Lolita’s sexuality and “serve[d] to re-traumatize the poor girl all over again.” The winner he chose, Lyuba Haleva of Bulgaria, pleased him by focusing on Humbert: “Somehow it all feels right to me and very inspired, and although the typeface is anachronistic and suggests to me a classic European novel, it seems to work.”
Concept and design : Suzene
Italian philosopher Umberto Eco's first novel, The Name of the Rose is an historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory. First published in Italian in 1980 under the title Il nome della rosa, it appeared in English in 1983, translated by William Weaver.
Concept and design : Suzene
Italian philosopher Umberto Eco's first novel, The Name of the Rose is an historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory. First published in Italian in 1980 under the title Il nome della rosa, it appeared in English in 1983, translated by William Weaver.
Concept and design : Suzene
EUGENIO MONTALE : THE EEL
The eel, sirenof cold seas, who leavesthe Baltic for our seas,our estuaries, rivers, risingdeep beneath the downstream floodfrom branch to branch, from twig to smaller twig,ever more inward,bent on the heart of rock,infiltrating muddyrills until one daylight glancing off the chestnutsfires her flashin stagnant pools,in the ravines cascading downthe Apennine escarpments to Romagna;eel, torch, whiplash,arrow of Love on earth,whom only our gulliesor dessicated Pyrenean brooks lead backto Edens of generation;green spirit seeking lifewhere only drought and desolation sting;spark that says that everything beginswhen everything seems charcoal,buried stump;brief rainbow, iris,twin to the one your lashes frameand you set shining virginal amongthe sons of men, sunk in your mire—can you fail to see her as a sister?
Concept and design : Suzene
EUGENIO MONTALE : THE EEL
The eel, sirenof cold seas, who leavesthe Baltic for our seas,our estuaries, rivers, risingdeep beneath the downstream floodfrom branch to branch, from twig to smaller twig,ever more inward,bent on the heart of rock,infiltrating muddyrills until one daylight glancing off the chestnutsfires her flashin stagnant pools,in the ravines cascading downthe Apennine escarpments to Romagna;eel, torch, whiplash,arrow of Love on earth,whom only our gulliesor dessicated Pyrenean brooks lead backto Edens of generation;green spirit seeking lifewhere only drought and desolation sting;spark that says that everything beginswhen everything seems charcoal,buried stump;brief rainbow, iris,twin to the one your lashes frameand you set shining virginal amongthe sons of men, sunk in your mire—can you fail to see her as a sister?
Concept and design : Suzene
Concept title : The Negative of Hope
This is a collection of short stories by Tadeusz Borowski, which were inspired by the author's concentration camp experience.
Borowski was not part of the resistance against the Nazis during World War II in Warsaw but his girlfriend at the time took part in it. She was captured, and because he was so much in love with her, he went to a known resistance meeting place in order to get arrested in an attempt to go to the same concentration camp as her. He was incarcerated at the notorious Auschwitz concentration camps. death camp. In searing, satiric prose Borowski details what life and death were like in the Nazi camp.
Concept and design : Suzene
Concept title : The Negative of Hope
This is a collection of short stories by Tadeusz Borowski, which were inspired by the author's concentration camp experience.
Borowski was not part of the resistance against the Nazis during World War II in Warsaw but his girlfriend at the time took part in it. She was captured, and because he was so much in love with her, he went to a known resistance meeting place in order to get arrested in an attempt to go to the same concentration camp as her. He was incarcerated at the notorious Auschwitz concentration camps. death camp. In searing, satiric prose Borowski details what life and death were like in the Nazi camp.
Concept and design : Suzene
The colours of the Maori flag are used here. Vigor is shown in the paint swirls and drops. This not only brings out the festivity of the parade but also the turmoil of the character who is now so lost and feels no identity. Her roots do not mean much to her and she struggles to under. It is just like the Maori flag in motion, waves of colours come crashing down to only make up a big blurry mess.
“Patricia Grace is a major New Zealand novelist, short story writer and children’s writer, of Ngati Toa, Ngati Raukawa and Te Ati Awa descent, and is affiliated with Ngati Porou by marriage. Grace began writing early, while teaching and raising her family of seven children, and has since won many national and international awards, including the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize for fiction, the Deutz Medal for Fiction, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, widely considered the most prestigious literary prize after the Nobel. A deeply subtle, moving and subversive writer, in 2007 Grace received a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to literature.”
Concept and design : Suzene
The colours of the Maori flag are used here. Vigor is shown in the paint swirls and drops. This not only brings out the festivity of the parade but also the turmoil of the character who is now so lost and feels no identity. Her roots do not mean much to her and she struggles to under. It is just like the Maori flag in motion, waves of colours come crashing down to only make up a big blurry mess.
“Patricia Grace is a major New Zealand novelist, short story writer and children’s writer, of Ngati Toa, Ngati Raukawa and Te Ati Awa descent, and is affiliated with Ngati Porou by marriage. Grace began writing early, while teaching and raising her family of seven children, and has since won many national and international awards, including the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize for fiction, the Deutz Medal for Fiction, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, widely considered the most prestigious literary prize after the Nobel. A deeply subtle, moving and subversive writer, in 2007 Grace received a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to literature.”
