Illustrated fiction from The Folio Society

The Folio Society has published illustrated editions of classic fiction titles including The Day of the Jackal, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Life, the Universe and Everything.

Each hardback book is housed in a slipcase and includes a specially commissioned introduction and original illustrations: Frederick Forsyth’s Day of the Jackal is illustrated by Tatsuro Kiuchi, Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues by Jillian Tamaki and Life, the Universe and Everything (the third title in Douglas Adams’ Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy series), by Jonathan Burton.

All three artists have worked with the Folio Society previously – Kiuchi worked on The Sea, The Sea, Tamaki on Irish Myths and Legends and Goblin Market and Selected Poems, and Burton on PD James Cover Her Face, as well as the first and second novels in the Hitchiker’s series. (He also designed some great film posters for last year’s BAFTA programmes, which you can see here).

Kiuchi’s illustrations for The Day of the Jackal are particularly striking and appear alongside, above and underneath text throughout the book, depicting key scenes, characters and objects.

Sheri Gee, an art director at The Folio Society, says she was impressed with some “suspenseful” monochrome images on Kiuchi’s website and thought they would be a great fit for Forsyth’s thriller, which was first published in 1971. “Thankfully, the Folio team and author agreed,” she says.

“We’d had an idea to integrate some of the illustrations with the text, which Tatsuro worked really well with – he showed a great ability to work with text and composition [and] his illustrations have just the right attention to detail and level of suspense,” she adds.

Also in the illustrated fiction series is a new version of The Voyage of Argo featuring illustrations by Daniel Egneus. In April, the publisher is also releasing a Letterpress Shakespeare series to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the poet and playwright’s birth. Each of Shakespeare’s plays, sonnets and poems have been reproduced in hand bound books set in 16 point Baskerville.

Burton’s illustrations for Life, the Universe and Everything

For more info on any of the titles featured or to buy a copy, visit thefoliosociety.com

Typorama: The Graphic Work of Philippe Apeloig: A chat with the French graphic designer famous for capturing movement and unpredictability in his work

Typorama: The Graphic Work of Philippe Apeloig


The unofficial French ambassador happens to be a trusted messenger for the cultural powerhouses—museums such as the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay, publishers such as Éditions de La Martinière and Robert Laffont and luxury brands such as Hermès and Yves Saint Laurent. His brilliance…

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A Desk Above the Rest

For those that prefer to be on their feet when they work, the minimalist elevated Higher Desk makes for the perfect place to read or use a laptop. Its modest dimensions make working while standing possible even in the most confined spaces. Better yet, with one optional “short leg” it can be adapted to any table or desk!

Designer: COORDINATION BERLIN/Flip Sellin


Yanko Design
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Competition: five Formafantasma monographs to be won

Competition: five Formafantasma monographs to be won

Competition: Dezeen is giving readers the chance to win one of five copies of a book released to coincide with a retrospective exhibition of work by Eindhoven designers Formafantasma.

Competition: five Formafantasma monographs to be won

The self-titled book includes four years of projects by Formafantasma, the studio formed by Italian-born designers Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin after graduating from Design Academy Eindhoven.

Competition: five Formafantasma monographs to be won

The publication accompanies the designers’ Prima Materia exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in the Dutch city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch.

Competition: five Formafantasma monographs to be won

The 208-page title is filled with captioned colour images of the duo’s bizarre material experiments, including products created using waste from the food industry and tableware baked from culinary ingredients.

Competition: five Formafantasma monographs to be won

It also includes essays by curators and critics including Li Edelkoort, Alice Rawsthorn, Libby Sellers and Fredric Baas.

Competition: five Formafantasma monographs to be won

Designed by Bettina Madita Böhm, the book is published by Lecturis in both Dutch and English.

Competition closes 26 March 2014. Five winners will be selected at random and notified by email. Winners’ names will be published in a future edition of our Dezeen Mail newsletter and at the top of this page. Dezeen competitions are international and entries are accepted from readers in any country.

We won’t pass your information on to anyone else; we just want to know a little about our readers. Read our privacy policy here.

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monographs to be won
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Interview: Marisa Kakoulas and Margot Mifflin on Tattooing in the New Millennium: We speak with the two experts on women in the industry on the eve of their Powerhouse Arena panel discussion

Interview: Marisa Kakoulas and Margot Mifflin on Tattooing in the New Millennium


All things counter culture reach a point of popularity where they cease to exist exclusively in the periphery—some just take longer than others to reach the tipping point. Tattooing, for example, has existed for thousands of years, yet only in the past few…

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Competition: Mies van der Rohe monograph to be won

Competition: Mies van der Rohe monograph to be won

Competition: Dezeen and publishers Phaidon have teamed up to give one reader the chance to win a monograph of work by Modernist architect Mies van der Rohe.

Competition: Mies van der Rohe monograph to be won
The living room of Farnsworth House, Plano, Illinois, 1945–51. Courtesy of Alan Weintraub/Arcaid/Corbis

Mies by Detlef Mertins is a comprehensive guide to the architecture and design of German-American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century.

Competition: Mies van der Rohe monograph to be won
Tugendhat chair, 1929–30. Courtesy of the Vitra DesignMuseum

Mies’ pioneering architecture is explored and dissected in the text by Mertins, who sadly passed away before the book’s release.

Competition: Mies van der Rohe monograph to be won
Interior view along the glass wall to the dining room and terrace of Tugendhat House, Brno, 1928–30. Courtesy of isifa Image Service s.r.o./Alamy

The writing is accompanied by over 700 images including drawings, plans and sections, plus archive and contemporary photographs.

Competition: Mies van der Rohe monograph to be won
Plaza of Westmount Square, Montreal, 1965–8. Courtesy of Chicago History Museum

Comparisons are drawn between the architect’s iconic houses such as the Farnsworth House in the USA and the Tugendhat House in the Czech Republic, along with the furniture designed for each residence.

Competition: Mies van der Rohe monograph to be won
Seagram Building, 375 Park Avenue, New York, 1954–8, designed with Philip Johnson. Courtesy of 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

It also includes towers such as the Seagram Building in New York and 880 Lake Shore Drive apartment buildings in Chicago, as well as his New National Gallery in Berlin.

Competition: Mies van der Rohe monograph to be won
Mies by Detlef Mertins book cover

Published by Phaidon, the book will retail for £100 when released on 7 April.

Competition closes 31 March 2014. One winner will be selected at random and notified by email. Winners’ names will be published in a future edition of our Dezeen Mail newsletter and at the top of this page. Dezeen competitions are international and entries are accepted from readers in any country.

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monograph to be won
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Penguin launches elaborate ‘digital companion’ to Khaled Hosseini’s novel And The Mountains Echoed

Penguin Books has launched an ambitious web project to promote and accompany Khaled Hosseini’s novel And The Mountains Echoed, which will be released in paperback in the spring. A page-for-page ‘digital companion’ to the book, the site features 402 different mini experiences for fans to explore…

Created by Dare Toronto for Penguin Canada, The Echo Project (echoproject.ca) is a mix of videos, illustrations, audio recordings and interactive puzzles, and aims to allow readers to explore the themes contained within the novel in more detail. Watch the film below for more info on the project:

The Echo Project is the latest example of how publishers are experimenting with digital technology to reach out to new readers or launch books in an unusual way. Penguin previously collaborated with the London office of Dare to create the MyFry app to accompany Stephen Fry’s second autobiography, which allowed readers to enjoy Fry’s book in a non-linear fashion via mobiles.

The team at Dare Toronto was inspired by the way that newspapers and other mainstream media outlets are now incorporating music, video, maps and interviews to tell news stories in a rich and dynamic way. “A similar thinking was behind The Echo Project,” says Dare Toronto ECD Paul Little. “The difference for publishing is, and what we were concerned with, was to not ruin mental pictures or to take away from what’s great about reading. This is a companion to the reading experience.”

Khaled Hosseini has contributed to the website himself, alongside other authors and artists, and Canadian editors and TV personalities. Each contributor was invited to choose a page from the novel that inspired them and suggest what could appear on the corresponding page on the website. Some contributors actually provided a finished page for the site, but most simply told the creative team at Dare how they felt when they read the page in the book, and the agency then developed the web page on their behalf.

The site includes historical information about some of the scenes included in the novel, which journeys from Kabul to Paris, to San Francisco and to the Greek island of Tinos. It also references items intrinsic to Afghani culture, including wedding traditions and recipes. Some pages of the site are also deliberately left blank, with readers invited to propose ideas for what should appear on these.

Visit The Echo Project at echoproject.ca.

Credits:
Agency: Dare Toronto
ECD: Paul Little
Associate creative director: Chris Obergfell
Art director: Craig Ferguson
Writer: Tal Wagman
Illustrators: Melissa Bashura, Leah Vlemmiks

Illustration agents round table

Dare to Dream by Chrissy Lau (Illustration Ltd)

If you’re a freelance illustrator, you might have thought about getting yourself an agent. But what exactly can they do for you and your work, and how do you go about approaching one? We talked to four agents to find out…

For our recent illustration special issue, we organised a round table discussion with four agents – Helen Rush, director of Rush Agency; Victoria Pearce, senior agent at Illustration Ltd; Caroline Thomson of Arena Illustration; and Claire Meiklejohn of Meiklejohn and New Division agencies. They talked through everything from how they get their illustrators work to negotiating contracts, fees and rights.

In addition to the topics discussed below, the four of them also shed light on new trends within the industry; how agents can help illustrators to manage their own style and exposure and develop a long-term career, whether as a recent graduate or an established freelancer. An edited version of the discussion is presented below.

 

CR: How do you go about getting work for your illustrators? Do you still place value in showing a physical portfolio, for example?

Victoria Pearce: There’s a whole armoury. When I started out as a junior booker for a photographic agent 20 years ago, it was just based on the reputation that you built with your client. Sending portfolios over by courier, hoping one would get selected. Now you have to be as competitive as you can digitally. You need a well-designed, optimised website backed up with the traditional forms of promotion. We first reacted to the digital age by doing e-marketing and newsletters, but now we’re all aware that people’s inboxes are terrifying things to open every morning – so there are opportunities for print promotions to stand out.

Helen Rush: It’s so nice to see something in a decent format that you can hold and see in print. And the majority of the time it is going to end up in print. But when we show work, it is always backed up with an iPad so people can zoom in and see all the details. And the volume of work on an iPad means we can carry around much more.

Claire Meiklejohn: When you have meetings, it’s also an opportunity for the person you’re visiting to get away from the screen. Your mind becomes clearer as you look at something physical.

VP: I saw a fantastic presentation by a young graduate illustrator, Chris Gilleard, who we’ve recently taken on. He had a small traditional portfolio but then each project was extended by a digital presentation on the iPad – all these long continuous scrolls. But from a purely selfish point of view, with a physical portfolio it was always very difficult to get the edit correct if I was seeing different people. It wasn’t flexible – so the iPad was the answer.

HR: We have loose-leaf portfolios that we change depending on who we go to see, as well as individual portfolios for the artists, then iPads for animations. You can’t do all that on your own though, it’s hard work!

The Diary of Dennis the Menace cover illustration by Steve May (Arena Illustration). Puffin Books TM © DC Thomson & Co. Ltd

CR: How do you actively look for new talent?

Caroline Thomson: In the main, it’s really recommendations from a client – they recommend us to the illustrator. Obviously, we have to love the work, and we might then have a six month trial period and go from there. We also go to student shows; we’ve picked up a lot of people from D&AD’s New Blood, and we have affiliations with certain universities, so we see the illustrators coming out of them before the shows.

CM: The amount of submissions is always tricky to manage, as it’s huge. But you get quick at going through them. You know what you’re looking for, you can tell.

CR: And what is it that? Can you quantify it?

HR: No! It’s a bit like falling in love, isn’t it?

VP: Yes, it’s seeing the work and getting a shiver down your spine. It is like sieving for gold though, because of the sheer numbers we get as a large agency. We have on average over 200 submissions a month through the website.

CT: You have to be really honest as well. We’re a small agency, so we don’t really take on that many people a year, two or three. And we find we have to be really honest, as much as we might love what they do, will we get them the work?

CM: You also might already represent someone similar. And even when you’ve got to the point where you like their work, what’s their personality like, what’s their background? We talk to our illustrators a lot, the relationship is absolutely crucial.

CT: And you have to learn about how they work. Even how long it takes them to do a piece of work. It sounds obvious, but it really is true – it’s important that you know that, so you can tell the client.

CM: We’ve been representing some of our illustrators for over 15 years. But every new person we take on, in my mind, we’re still going to be repping them in 15 years. It’s long-term.

Vogue Portugal cover by Nuno DaCosta (Illustration Ltd)

CR: Can we talk about fees and rights? What factors determine how you work out these aspects of a project?

HR: Yes; exposure, territory. And the client budget.

CT: It’s all based on the exposure of that image. Is it worldwide, or just regional?

CM: So it’s actually a lot of factors, and while it’s probably very simple for us because we do it all the time, unfortunately a lot of independents fall into not necessarily knowing how to price things.

HR: I think they just lack the experience. When I was training someone in pricing things up, we both wrote our figures down and I’d say, ‘Well I don’t know how I got to that’. But it’s experience, it really is. Having a feel for what you’re doing.

VP: A younger freelance illustrator might just be flattered to be asked to work. But they aren’t thinking of the bigger picture: that the client wants to work with you specifically because they like your style in order to sell their product. The illustrator is part of that selling, that promotion and so there’s a value to that. And you need to be very careful about that value. A really useful point of call can be a membership with the Association of Illustrators (AOI) who have a telephone hotline. They are there to help you specifically with costing as part of the membership.

CT: I was part of the pricing survey that they did recently. In the members’ section online it gives you examples of certain parts of the industry; like ‘a book cover on somebody else’s book with a UK publisher’ and there’s a fee bracket for that. But rights are changing so much, with ebooks and audio downloads – an image might now be on the audio account, too. And most publishers are now also thinking about worldwide usage, as many of the big publishers are global.

CT: So many clients say to me, ‘We will retain the copyright’. But it’s not theirs to retain, it’s the illustrator’s, it’s their intellectual property. And in the majority of cases, when an illustrator comes up with their own characters, backgrounds and scenes, it’s their IP, their copyright. So it’s only for the client to buy, or make use of – they can’t retain it.

Watership Down by Al Murphy (Agency Rush)

CR: For those thinking about working with an agent, could you sum up what it is you look after for an illustrator? And is there an ideal time to work with one?

HR: It’s about supporting somebody and developing a career. When we take new grads on, that’s what we do – show them what to do and build a portfolio.

CM: Generally speaking the portfolio they come in with is not the one they’re going to work with, it needs to be produced into a commercial portfolio. The right samples and subject matters are crucial. But most important are the fees and the contracts.

CT: Yes, knowing always to ask for money for something – not to do free work, on the whole.

CM: Some people seem to think that if they do work for free this time, they’ll be paid next time. And we’ve all been in the industry long enough to know that at the moment you do it for free, that means you work for free! That will carry on.

VP: We probably take on fewer graduates as we like people to be a couple of years out of university – to have come out with these high expectations, spent a year getting them dashed. So they’re starting to market and promote their own work with clients, and managing the process. But one important piece of advice would be to separate yourself from your work – see it as a business and create a business plan for your work over a year or two years. By separating your creative from yourself you can see it objectively and strategically.

CT: After two years they’ll probably have a better idea of whether their work is selling, for a start, but also they might be getting to a point when they’re really quite busy. And that’s the problem with illustrators – the busier they are the fewer clients they are able to see. And that’s when an agent is really handy, because we do the business side of things and they can get on with being creative.

CM: Yes, if you’re at the point in your career when you’re very busy, that’s the other area when we come into our own as well. Lots of people presume that if you’re really busy you don’t need an agent because you’re getting the work in. But actually that’s exactly when you do need an agent.

HR: I remember one of our artists getting a great job but they weren’t used to pricing. He said, ‘Oh I’ll do it for a couple of thousand’. We got him £68,000. That’s a life-changing amount of money.

VP: There can be a perception with agents that we can be unfriendly, that we’re the bad guys, but we’re not, we’re here to facilitate and help everybody in the process. And, hopefully, make everybody happy by negotiating the best deals all round. Us then invoicing clients frees illustrators up. And it can be hard to chase up that client who might well be the same person who commissioned you.

HR: It’s quite easy for us to ask for more money; it’s sometimes very different to ask for more money
for yourself.

CR: What else can new graduate illustrators do to get their portfolio into shape?

CM: You need to know where illustration is being used. Go into WHSmiths, look at the editorial – that’s how to develop your portfolio. All the work you’ve done in university should be about honing your skills. So the briefs you’ve responded to aren’t necessarily enough like ‘real life’ – you need to know your market. The easiest way is to be commissioned, but you can set your own briefs. Look through a magazine and find an illustrated article, that’s your real life brief. Set yourself ten from ten different magazines, then you’ve produced ten pieces of work for your portfolio which are as ‘real’ as you’re going to get them.

CT: Many new illustrators don’t think about the end-user and I think that’s because of what’s happening with illustration courses at the moment: because of the situation with the fees you’re getting a lot of students who perhaps would have done fine art being pushed into illustration, because it’s deemed commercial. But it’s not commercial unless you want it to be commercial; it’s as ‘fine art’ as you can get it if you want. College is a great place to experiment, but if you want to go out and get work then you do have to think, ‘Who’s going to buy my work?’

HR: And push yourself – don’t just pick the safe and easy magazine articles to work from – be tough with yourself so your work is always moving. Remember it is a rollercoaster. Even the busiest illustrators have quiet patches.

Claude the Lion by Sean Sims, designed for the Queens Jubilee celebrations through the Greeting Cards Industry Show, PG Live (New Division)

CR: Finally, have your own opinions on what illustration is – and can do – changed over the years you’ve been in the industry?

VP: I think there’ll always be a place for illustration because what it offers is a unique identity to clients and brands. They want something very distinctive.

HR: And you can work with anybody from anywhere in the world.

CT: I still think of it as being the most basic, most fundamental communication tool out there. It is specifically designed to communicate an idea, sometimes with text, sometimes without. But in the most simple and graphic terms it’s an amazing tool.

VP: With the rise of digital media, I felt some of the magic and the art was being lost in photography. With illustrators, still working by hand, I could see the art was there. I’d love to see more use of fashion illustration within an editorial context, though – to one day see a return to an illustrated Vogue cover, if there’s an art director out there who’s got the balls to do that. In fashion photography there are a lot of fantasy images but some of it is too objectifying, there’s too much retouching. Looking at illustration, I know it’s pure fantasy. It has a sophistication.

CM: When someone uses illustration it just stands out from the crowd, from editorial through to advertising. It’s the medium that is going to grab your audience’s attention.

 

The full round table discussion was featured in our February 2014 issue – an illustration special, available to purchase here. For more details on each of the agencies featured and the illustrators on their books, see Agency Rush at agencyrush.com; Arena at arenaillustration.com; Illustration Ltd at illustrationweb.com; and Meiklejohn and New Division at meiklejohn.co.uk and newdivision.com

Zeitguide 2014: This year’s insight-laden guide to culture, in print and digital formats

Zeitguide 2014


Culled from 370 pieces of source material, this year’s Zeitguide—an almanac for the ever-changing zeitgeist—from Grossman & Partners delivers unparalleled insight into the direction we’re all moving. Produced by…

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Fantastic Flying Books!

This design is a bit whimsy, a little outlandish, and a lot imagination-inspiring… just like a good book! Inspired by the 2012 Oscar-winning animation “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore,” designer Kiril Gitman sought out to recreate the very image of books flying miraculously. The result is BY THE BOOK: a playful alternative to a bookshelf that you can adjust to your liking with your favorite reads!

Designer: Kiril Gitman


Yanko Design
Timeless Designs – Explore wonderful concepts from around the world!
Shop CKIE – We are more than just concepts. See what’s hot at the CKIE store by Yanko Design!
(Fantastic Flying Books! was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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