Classic jackets a perfect fit for book lovers
In this era of ebooks and Amazon, there are fewer reasons than ever even for us book lovers to make our way into a bookstore. Our heroine in this story is Coralie Bickford-Smith, a London-based book jacket designer for Penguin books who has given us reason to grace the shelves once again, by turning back the clock to when books were beautiful things to give and to treasure.
Armed with little more than a typography degree from the University of Reading when she took on the task of repackaging the classics on Penguin’s roster, what Bickford-Smith decided to do was nothing less than revolutionary.
“I asked myself, ‘what could I bring to the party?’ ” says Bickford-Smith, whose inspirational talk at the Association of Registered Graphic Designers’ Design Thinkers conference in November brought down the full house at Toronto’s Sony Centre.
“If you look at the classics section in a bookstore, there’s a lot of uninspiring paperbacks. After looking into the archives at these beautiful earlier editions, I decided that we needed to change the livery of the classics and make them something people cherish again.”
With her first project, a book of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales that she was asked to design in 2004, Bickford-Smith talked the publishers into a traditional hard cloth binding, keeping the costs down by sticking with standard materials but adding the design value of lush graphic ornament, foil and embossing.
“It took a lot of persuasion on my part, but people loved it,” says Bickford-Smith, whose design-forward approach now graces nearly 50 of the most beloved titles in the western literary canon, and has spawned, along with many imitators, a mini-William Morris movement of sorts in the precarious world of publishing.
“I decided that we needed to change the livery of the classics and make them something people cherish again.” CORALIE BICKFORD-SMITH BOOK DESIGNER
“If you go back to what Morris was saying, it was: ‘get back to your craft. Enjoy the craftsmanship of what you’ve made,’ ” says Bickford-Smith, who, when she’s not revolutionizing the world of publishing, spends her free time at the V&A museum, or combing old bookstores in Charing Cross for inspiration.
Her first source, however, is the book itself. “I get my ideas about themes and motifs from reading the text. Using, say, a peacock feather for Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray — a symbolic element from the book you’d appreciate as a reader.”
A self-described book nerd, who, as a lonely child, collected bibles “not for their religious content but because there were so many different versions,” Bickford-Smith triumphs in “kicking the ebook trend.” She says: “Book design is really taking off now. Publishers are really into the physical form again.” An outcome she finds almost as welcome as encouraging more people to read.
“I think it’s really important for people to engage with an object,” says Bickford-Smith. “It’s the tactile nature of a real book, the material feel of the grain of the cloth on the cover, the sense of encountering a greatly crafted object that people respond to.”
The challenge of making the book a relevant object was one that Bickford-Smith met with design. “I just wanted to blow people’s minds and make these classics into objects of beauty that they wanted to buy and give and collect.” And no better opportunity, I might add, than in this holiday season. Karen von Hahn is a Toronto-based writer, trend observer and style commentator. Contact her at kvh@karenvonhahn.com.