Every day the miserly Silas Marner works, and every night he takes his hoard of gold out from under his floorboards and counts it. Then his fortunes change abruptly. And when an abandoned child, Eppie, finds her way into his home, Silas is given a chance to transform his life forever.
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Book-cover designer Jenny Grigg answers a few questions on the design-process.
~ How did this book inspire your cover artwork?
Because the main character Silas Mariner is a silk weaver, my first idea was to embroider the quote in red thread and have it photographed. That would have involved designing typography for the quote, perhaps in a 19th century type style, and then commissioning a machine embroiderer to stitch up the design in red thread.
It became obvious this idea was too ambitious as we didn't have much time. Instead I opted to use a technique using cut strips of paper, so you could say the quote is written with paper thread.
The paper technique was one I had used for 10 covers in a Peter Carey series a few years ago, so I was well practised at it. I had already gone through the trial and error stage. Jim Stoddart the art director at Penguin knew and liked the technique, so it was a good solution creatively and practically. This time I had a friend photograph my hands wrtiting the letters in paper and adhering them to the background. A kind of weaving of it's own, as it turned
out.
~ Did you approach the design like any other book, or did it feel that these ones were a little special?
It is good to know your work can contribute positively, beyond the point of sale in a bookstore. And as a designer, contributing to a Penguin Classics series is a buzz. It was a double whammy of a brief.
~ Any thoughts on the Penguin/RED partnership?
It's a great idea, a clever interpretation of (Red)'s endeavours
~ What else do you associate with the colour red?
Roses are red, red rag to a bull, passion, anger, heat, warmth, PMS 485 from my time as a magazine art director. My favourite red is 'chinese lacquer red'.
