Utku Lomlu on Designing John Lanchester's Reality and Other Stories
Utku Lomlu is an Istanbul-based independent designer who also works with Can Publishing, one of the most important publishers in Turkey. He is the founder of Lom Creative Studio, that mostly works on editorial design and brand identity. Here he takes us through his process for designing the striking cover for Reality and Other Stories
I had previously designed a cover for John Lanchester's The Wall for Norton publishing, and this typographic cover was appreciated by the author and readers. After this collaboration, they asked me to work on another cover for the author’s new story book… Something graphic and type dominant.
Lanchester's new book, Reality and Other Stories, brings together eight contemporary ghost stories about the fear stemming from the overwhelming power of technology over us: This supernatural manifests itself through cell phones, social media, computers, reality shows and smart homes.
In the first stage, I worked three different alternatives;
Firstly, I prepared a draft with esoteric connotations. In my second alternative, I focused on typographic designs in which reality is gradually disappearing, in contrast to the title of the book. And I designed my third draft on wifi signals based on the story called “Signal” in the book.
This last approach was highly appreciated by Norton's art director Steve Attado and he encouraged me to go over it and expand on it. He asked me to work a few alternatives based on this draft. We had so little time.
In line with these comments, I tried different color combinations.
Then I worked different layouts of typography and shared of them.
But…
The editor and author didn’t feel like this is quite as gripping as they hoped or capturing the spirit of the book enough. According to author John Lanchester, Reality and Others Stories's cover should catch the sense of the ‘unheimlich’ – unhomey, unfamiliar, untame, uncomfortable = eerie, weird, etc.- the opposite of homely and familiar and comfortable in book. They asked for some new options and pulled a few of my previous covers (1984 and Sartre series) that the editor and Steve discussed as maybe getting a little closer to what the author was hoping for.
So, I reassessed the problem and focused on what many of the stories in the book have in common, just as the editor emphasized; screens, screens, screens. Screens we can't take our eyes off… Laptops, tablets, iPhones, e-readers, TVs, etc.
I focused on solutions that I could use the eye image from the first work together with the 'unheimlich' feeling and typography, so the new compositions emerged. Frankly, I was almost sure that these were exactly what the author intended.
And it happened as I expected! According to Steve, my new cover alternatives were “very cool”, and he said he would share it with the writer and editor right away.
Lanchester chose the red background one among these latest designs and said it would look great with his previous book, The Wall…
In my opinion, the alternatives where the eye looked down were a little stronger. :)
It was decided, and after a few minor edits, the cover was finalized.
And finally!
Final cover
Editor, artworker and lifelong bibliophile.