Hasta La Ideas

Pan Macmillan is re-issuing Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series in September with a new set of covers, in celebration of 30 years since the original publication. The covers are designed by Crush.

The first book in the series features a ‘DIY cover’, and comes with stickers so that readers can create their own design. “We knew the key for this would be to make the books attractive to the Hitchhiker’s newcomer, but also have some hidden or cryptic element for the die-hard fans,” says Chris Pelling of Crush. “The books themselves are farcical (and possibly a bit psychedelic), so the simple comic style set against the real life photo of space seemed to fit the slightly surreal style of writing.”

“The sticker idea allowed us to balance the more obvious elements but also throw in the more obscure,” he continues. We were really lucky that Pan loved the idea of an actual sticker sheet to go with the book and fought tooth and nail to get the idea through. Even though book covers do use lots of nice printing techniques like foil blocks, embossing, varnishes etc, that’s usually where it stops. So for us to get a sticker sheet approved felt like a real coup.”

“It’s been an amazing project to work on. Everyone involved has gone the extra yard just because it’s Hitchhiker’s. I think it fits into the ‘national treasure’ box and people are just happy to be involved.”