Cover to Cover - David Pearson

The second speaker at Cover to Cover was the brilliant David Pearson. I am a huge fan of his work, particularly for Penguin Books and really enjoyed the talk he gave at uni when I was in the first year. The thing I really like about David is that while his work is often great, he is in no way big-headed about it, often coming across as almost apologetic about his undoubted ability.

He is really passionate about the history of penguin book covers and considers himself extremely lucky to have worked with them straight after graduating. One thing that I found especially interesting is that he didn't actually do some of the covers he is best known for, like these:

These were both done by Phil Baines, who was actually one of David's tutors. He was very honest about this but I had always assumed that he had done the artwork himself. Of the ones that David did actually do, I noticed that he has a real fondness for using rubber stamps, embossing and other fancy craft techniques, rather than relying on solely digital techniques. I must do more of this sort of thing myself as it really adds a layer of quality and shows an attention to detail. The only problem is due to material costs, meaning the design better be spot on before spending money on an embossing plate!

So it would seem that David is primarily some sort of art director, as he often gets others in to do the art/typography. I can definitely see myself in a similar role at some point, especially as I now know a whole bunch of brilliant illustrators from my course. I would definitely like to be hands-on with the design wherever possible too though, and not just the guy who goes to meetings.

Speaking of which, David gave a useful tip for when you take work to show your boss or a client; take three designs along, make sure two of them are totally inappropriate/offensive and more often than not they will be so relieved to see the inoffensive third option that they will sign it off. Nice idea.