I’ve already written about the design for this story collection from Swan River Press but the gradient layout does nothing to convey the splendour of the foil-embossed printing. In the past when I’d suggested to publishers that foil printing might be an option the idea was always turned down for reasons of cost. My original intention for The Far Tower was for the design to be printed in a metallic ink so it might resemble the gold-on-green cover of the Yeats book which was the model for this volume. Metallic inks don’t always work too well, however, especially on a darkish background, so I said to Swan River “Or we could do it in gold foil…” To my surprise and delight they said “Why not?” So here’s the result. A great end to the year. The book is available here.
And back in October, I posted what everyone thought at the time was the final design for Of Mice and Minestrone, a new book of Hap and Leonard stories by Joe R Lansdale. The Hap and Leonard books are popular works (there was a TV series based on them a while back) so they’re subject to the demands of the marketplace which in this case required a cover more in line with the red/white/black arrangement of some of Lansdale’s related titles. I’d already done most of this as an additional draft during the work on the first design so the reworking wasn’t too time-consuming. The rodent in the soup is more visible in this version which is another point in its favour. Of Mice and Minestrone will be published by Tachyon in May next year.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Far Tower: Stories for WB Yeats
• Of Mice and Minestrone
Very nice work. I have a few Swan River Press volumes (including Lafcadio’s Hearn’s INSECT LITERATURE, WHH’s HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND and recently Le Fanu’s GREEN TEA) so i can testify to their good work. I had just about decided to pass on this Yeats volume but I’m going to have to get this!
Thanks, Stephen, that’s good to hear. I was really impressed with the Green Tea volume as well, it reminded me how good Le Fanu is, and sent me back to stories of his I hadn’t read for years.
Re: The Far Tower: How pleasantly atypical that in regressive money over everything else times that a publisher goes with the aesthetic choice over the penny pinching one. Way too often these days, the choice is made to save a relatively insignificant sum even though if the sum was an actual problem, then the overall business has a much bigger problem. If a minor expense is a problem, then there’s a much bigger problem going on. Like viability of the business. But in this case, good on them!
The surprising thing is that it’s a small publisher ignoring the additional expense in this case. I don’t make these kinds of suggestions very often, not least because few of the books I design warrant this kind of cover treatment. But I’m very glad I did in this case. The photo doesn’t really capture the way the light reflects against the embossed edges as well as the gold areas.
Wow, that’s beautiful! Congratulations and Happy New Year!
Thanks, Thom, happy new year to you too!