VINTAGE designers pick their favourite book covers of 2019

One of our proudest moments earlier this year was receiving copies of the Murakami Diary which we worked on together. The strong Murakami branding influenced the cover, and the week-to-view design allowed us to run imagery as double-page spreads throughout. We were influenced by Japanese aesthetics and sourced original material as well as creating our own illustrations. We can’t wait to see how people use and enjoy it next year.

Chosen by Suzanne Dean and Rosie Palmer

I love Jordan Andrew Carter’s style of hand-drawn pencil work meshed with punchy colours on this debut collection of short stories. Nafissa Thompson-Spires’s witty, timely writing is deserving of a design that is both modern and eye-catching and Carter’s illustrations manage to do just that.

Chosen by Ros Otoo

I loved researching photographs for the front jacket of this wonderful novel that spans six decades of sweeping change in America.

The photograph that was finally chosen is by Magnum photographer Eli Reed. The image reflects some of the passion and warmth of this many-stranded story, as well as being pertinent to a particular event in the book. 

Chosen by Lily Richards

Origins by Lewis Dartnell was a great brief to work on. With the huge scope of the subject matter we explored many ideas and different approaches. The author suggested the work of photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand and when we found this striking photograph it seemed like a gift. The contours of the landscape not only show man's connection with the world but are also reminiscent of a human fingerprint.

Chosen by Kris Potter

For Julia Lovell’s re-evaluation of Maoism, I wanted to show that the power and appeal of Mao’s ideology is both enduring and far-reaching. The idea of ‘marketing’ a cultural revolution in the present day using urban street graphics seemed a very fitting design approach. Spray-painting stencils of Mao’s iconic image, repeated and overlaid, emphasises mass promotion and appeal. The ‘pop art’ results are both eye-catching and unnerving in their repetition and persistence.

Chosen by Stephen Parker

I’ve always admired Kurt Vonnegut’s taste for the absurd and his knack of lightening the darkest of subjects with offbeat comical observations. This creation for Breakfast of Champions initiated the Vintage Vonnegut series design: an ordinary cereal box animated as a kind of lurid mouthpiece, loaded with Vonnegut wit. As the man himself says: ‘Ideas, or lack of them can cause disease’.

Chosen by Matthew Broughton

One of my highlights this year was working on Slack-Tide by Elanor Dymott. I tried several routes and it took quite a while to get to this final cover – but I’m glad it did really as I ended up getting my paintbrushes out and coming up with this solution which was a lot more evocative and fitting for the book.

Chosen by Julia Connolly