Granta

Luke Bird on Designing Diana Athill's Don't Look At Me Like That

Since 2018, I’ve been designing a sort of ‘standalone series’ for Granta in the UK, called Granta Editions. Unlike most series, there isn’t a cover ‘series style’, per se. Each book has its own distinct front cover design, with the rest of the jacket layout tying the books together. They have different coloured spines and matching coloured flaps with consistent typography, and an inside cover printed in a contrasting Pantone wash.

Most exciting, though, for book design nerds like myself: hidden in the back flap is a perforated bookmark, which can be torn away from the flap to use, when reading the book. The idea for that enchanting detail came from Sarah Wasley at Granta, who commissioned me to design the series.

Luke Bird on Designing Diana Athill's Don't Look At Me Like That