On The Shelf…

Waterstones has a large range of books and I went in search of John Le Carre’ books, to get an idea of how a series of books may look. I managed to find his collection of spy novels that had been published by Penguin books. The covers, some shown above, are mainly photographic with carefully placed typography along with a white border to the novel. 

This gives the series a modern look, with clean cut type along with a topical photograph of a landscape or city scene. It was interesting to see the series on the shelf and the series as a whole worked well with a set style evident throughout. 

Im not so sure I would want to use photography in the design of my book covers, as it has been repeated throughout many adaptations of his book jackets, but as a set I like the modern feel they portray. 

I managed to find a series of novels in the same area in the book shop that related and may even be competitors to the series of books. Titles from Andy McNab and the Bourne series. It was interesting to see the contrast, the Andy McNab Novels had an ‘Action Man’ and ‘Blockbuster’ feel, this didn’t have a great feel about it as the professionalism and care modern approach wasn’t there like the Le Carre’ books. 

I think I may have to be careful in my approach in design, as I definitely don’t want to have this ‘blockbuster’ and poor design.