Patrick Knowles, you've created countless book covers – do you have a favourite?
There have been so many! There have been some that did really well, like the Ben Aaronovitch series called Rivers of London, and the lettering that I created for the cover became quite iconic. It was unexpected, because it was really hard to get right at first. We went through lots of hoops to get there.
It is often said that a book shouldn't be judged by its cover – what's your take?
Ah, the number of times I get asked that! Well, as book designers, we tend to work within a genre, meaning you don't make a crime book look like a dictionary. So in one sense, you can, to a degree, judge a book by its cover. But there are always books that break the mould, and nowadays covers more often break out of their genre stereotypes.
How do you see the role of the cover in the reading experience?
A great cover gives a flavour of the book without telling the whole story. It needs to be accurate, too. We've all had occasions where halfway through a book we've thought, 'Well, it's nothing like the cover'. At the same time, the cover design shouldn't be too literal and simply describe the narrative: it's all about creating an enticing package.
What are the processes that you go through when trying to come up with the right cover?
The first question to ask is about the market. Covers are sales tools, so I familiarise myself with what else is in the market at the moment in that genre, which will give me a kind of 'feel'. Next, I get some initial ideas down, sometimes just sketched out on paper, or sometimes more developed on the computer. My aim is to give the publisher a selection of ideas that are in line with the current market 'feel' and are things that I think will work. Then the feedback stage begins.
Do you see each new project as a challenge?
Very much so – that's why it continues to be really interesting. If I was just doing crime thrillers, for example, that might be a bit tedious because the genre is often so visually similar: in a sense you're just reinventing the wheel each time. But most of the work I do is very varied, and at the moment I'm doing a series of historical fiction, some lettering for a children's book, an elaborate Victorian thriller – all sorts, and each one will have its own challenge.
Does the paper quality make a difference when it comes to book covers?
Yes it does. The main UK publishers tend to use the same printers and the same sort of stock, but they also experiment too, so sometimes you'll see books with more unusual boards and surfaces, which gives a certain quality to them. That's especially true if it's more tactile, and has a particular texture or surface. With children's books, paper can be very important – it can have a big impact on the overall feel of the book.
Finally, what is your favourite kind of book to work on?
The more interesting projects tend to be the ones where I am creating an illustration for the cover or doing some hand lettering, for example, rather than just putting some type on a photograph. Crime books often tend to be a moody photograph of a figure walking off in the distance, but a fantasy genre book, which I do a fair amount of, tends to be much more creative and you can do more fun things with them.
