Duncan Blachford on Designing a Goat-tastic cover for The Slip
Duncan Blachford is a Melbourne, Australia-based freelance book designer and founder of Typography Studio and Tempo Haus. Read on for a wonderfully funny account of the trials and tribulations of finding the perfect cover image.
“Brimming with dark humour, empathy and a sharp eye for the uncanny, The Slip is an electrifying debut by an utterly original voice.”
The Slip by Miriam Webster is the first book to published by Aniko Press, the ten stories in this collection are dark, feral and completely unforgettable, full of strange encounters and big feelings. They are about the things we can’t hold onto: a marriage drifting out with the tide, a family collapsing like a wave, a young woman’s affair that dissolves as quickly as it ignites. You’ll find a whale watching trip going spectacularly awry, a potty-mouthed eel writhing its way to the sea and a grieving gardener seeking solace in the dirt beneath his nails.
Well HELLO, dream job!
The vision driving the design brief was to capture the author’s eye for the absurd and the surreal – some ideas were to use a muted colour palette, illustrative or painterly imagery – and bright, bold text. Some floated possibilities would be playing off the title’s many connotations: giving someone the slip, a slip of the tongue, slipperiness, a garment, making mistakes – and maybe featuring an eel, who appears within the titular story (in a metatextual way). [The publisher had also kindly let me know they'd particularly loved my cover for Bad Art Mother from a few years ago, so I was very happy to have that as a reference in the mix.]
Okay dream job, let’s go! (And yes, being the first book for Aniko Press, I did feel a little pressure. No pressure was actively applied, but ah, yes, I felt quite a bit of pressure, just quietly.)
First, I read the stories – they’re great fun, weird, funny, dark – emotional and complex literary fiction – I’m making notes of phrases, themes and visuals I can potentially lean into.
In one story, the protagonist dreams of animals, ‘Black dogs and other beasts that stalked behind you on the back roads. Horses whinnying and bucking in the wind, synchronised and weirdly fluid, changing ways like schools of silver fish ... A nanny goat with two grey kids in tow, offering them her teats’ – the dream is a premonition – there’s an escaped goat who has ‘chewed through her rope and fucked off up the hill somewhere’. I interpret the goat as a symbol for freedom – perhaps incorrectly, but I’m prepared to run with it – I like freedom, I’m not sure I like goats, but goats are pretty weird – they’re esoteric, surreal creatures (occult even!) – which seems a good fit for the collection. The power of the goat is calling.
I tried a bunch of things, awful things – too awful to share here or with the publisher – they shall live in my file of shame for ever. (It’s at this stage in my design process that I’m often like, ‘What the hell am I designing covers for? I have no idea what I’m doing! I suck at this, it’s time to hang up my cap and get a real job’. But I’ve learned to push through that part (because I don't want a real job) ... keep working, keep trying, hope, hope, work, work) until I found THE goat that might save my life. Tongue out – not too cute, not too ugly, just oddly charming enough, it’s chewing away in the high country. Being free, being chill, being weird. Being goat. Seems a nice vintage too, should contrast well with some garishly bright text – let’s aim for the sweet spot where the archaic (story telling; old as the hills) and the modern (the text often plays with form, while poking fun at its own metatextuality) meet. You know that spot, right? It’s a good place.
Jakob Philipp Hackert 1737–1807
So I felt I finally had something and I was pretty sure it was a winner. I should just send it over for review and pray the publisher and author like it – save myself some more pain and heartache – but I’m prone to doing my due diligence – so I explore a couple more options, just to be sure. I spent the next few days looking at eels. Too slimy, too ugly, too cute, too hard to license, too lo-res, too snake-like, doesn’t quite work. I eventually did find some pretty appealing candidates (but I'll be glad never to see another eel again). Then I leant into some other possibilities, the slip (a garment); a letter slipping – many variations in layout – but I decided not to show them – I like less options. Options are fun, but decisions are hard. I try do a lot of whittling down to make that decision process easier for others (I hope!). Out of fifty odd awful covers, I had a smattering of good ones. And one goat.
I presented the goat and the eel, keeping some cards up my sleeve should I need them. I was a bit torn at this stage, but I think I was secretly hoping the goat would win. And hey presto – the G.O.A.T is victor!
We made a few adjustments to the text size, and off to print it goes (trip, trap, trip, trap).
Oh yeah, the type – I wanted something big and bold but with a certain softness and warmth – enter the rock-solid humanist sans serif with a hint of contemporary typographic finesse, P22's Underground. And okay, my handwriting sucks but I want something with a human hand behind it, so I turn to another literary surrealist – help me out, Franz? – the word ‘Stories’ is set in Mister K (a font based on Kafka’s handwriting).
Phew. I survived. Please give me another cover, someone. I must repeat this vicious (and Kafkaesque?) cycle of excitement, self-loathing and rebirth. And do go buy the book, it’s very, very fun.
Final cover
Editor, artworker and lifelong bibliophile.