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Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Penguin / Waterstone's Hardback Classics

Design by Coralie Bickford-Smith

Designer Bickford-Smith strikes again -- and brilliantly so. Last month we looked at some of her designs for the Penguin Gothic Horror Series; this month the excellent Penguin Blog features her designs for a series of hardcover classics, sold exclusively in the UK through Waterstone's.


The spines alone are gorgeous; check out Penguin's Flickr photostream to see the individual titles.

Generally speaking, what do you think of jacket-less hardcovers?

14 comments:

Derek said...

Jacket-less hardcovers make a house feel like home.

Keath said...

I agree with Derek. Most of my books are older and the book jackets were lost by owners long before me. I love the old dusty look they have. These new titles above would fit right in (after some wear and tear of course!)

Libby said...

A hardcover book with a jacket is like a couch with a plastic cover.

Light and Voices said...

These jackets on blog today are simply put DIVINE.
Joyce

Anonymous said...

If you think they're nice to look at then you should try holding them. I was flicking through the range a couple of weeks ago in a branch of Waterstones and all I can say is 'velvety lusciousness' :o)

David Drummond said...

Awesome. I swear I will never do a boring cloth stamping again.

Arabian Nights on the Penguin blog is beautiful too.

Ian Koviak said...

I just ordered a few of these...

Slowly I will own all of them.

I think most of the time this type of stuff costs a bundle. Most printers charge per inch of foil stamping...

These are really affordable, i wonder if they are small trims.

Anonymous said...

You can't imagine how hard we work on those jackets, Judas! :( I agree with David... these books give me a whole new perspective on the stamp design.

HAK said...

I love these. Are they available in the US?

Joseph said...

Hak: sold exclusively through Waterstone's in the UK and not at all in the US, as far as I know :-(

Get out that credit card and hit the interwebs!

Jennifer Trevino said...

I know you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover but these are Gorgeousss! I want them all! I'm drooling over them like I would an amazing dress at Anthropologie.

jw said...

I wasn't really sold on jacketless hardbacks until I saw Open Letter's new books. Milan Bozic's designs are unmistakable (http://catalog.openletterbooks.org/)

Karolinum Press at Charles University has also done some good work and I have no problem with the releases by NYRB Childrens books like 13 Clocks & Uncle. . .

But the Boston Review hardbacks are merely acceptable.

Anonymous said...

SO I realize I'm late here, but are these sold out or something? Waterstone's doesn't seem to have them listed anymore...

Anonymous said...

These are just gorgeous books, I need to start collecting them. I think you can get them on Amazon, if Waterstones are sold out.