Interview with Joe McLaren

One of my all-time favourite illustrators, Joe McLaren, has designed book covers for Hodder Headline and Portobello, while he also produces handmade picture books. He has designed for a range of gothic classics, including Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and his unique, colour-constrasting designs immediately caught my eye when browsing a bookstore. 

 

I got in touch with him through email and he was nice enough to reply, to which I was very excited.

 

1: Due to the recent rise in digital publishing do you think the physical book is losing popularity?

In a way, that's probably true, but I'd rephrase it. I think it isn't losing popularity as much as it's losing proliferation. There will, inevitably, be fewer physical books around in the future, but that will mean that the ones that are produced will be more highly prized. The same is true of the horse- there were far more horses around 100 years ago; it was the only way to move stuff around. There are now far fewer horses, but those that are about are kept in relative luxury and highly prized as expensive, desirable commodities. The book, like the horse and the Polaroid camera will find a new, more select audience more interested in essence than utility.

2: How does this affect your design? Does it influence your approach to designing the physical book?

Around half of the commissions I receive for book cover design now are for 'luxury hardback' editions of previously published books. Typically these will be bought as gifts, or by people who have a great fondness for the book in question and want to dignify it with a special purchase. Those commissions tend to revel in textures, materials and processes associated with 'traditional' book design- foil printing, registers, belly-bands etc;  all of which fetishise the book as an object, and none of which really serve the content in a physical way. This suits me- I resonate with tradition, and find that it often gives the greatest scope for playfulness in a subtle way. I also understand the concept of wanting to house a precious book in a precious case. That said, I reacted with initial hostility to the appearance of the eBook- I have a house full of thousands of books, and I suppose I felt in some way that I had an emotional investment in physical literature that I didn't want to see threatened, but that's nonsense. Ebooks are here to stay, and for the most part, that's an excellent thing. More people will read more things, and people can self-publish with far less difficulty and financial risk, which I think is a fine thing. It may mean that book illustration as an industry wanes, but then it always has waned and waxed- for hundreds of years.

3: Would you find digital books more limiting to design for?

Yes, and that's fine. It's a mistake to think of limitations on design as a bad thing. My creativity is always excited most by a very restrictive brief. An 'L' shaped illustration for an article about incontinence that needs to be both amusing and sympathetic, and needs to go to print at 3pm today is a far more demanding and exciting brief to me than an illustration about 'love' with no direction that can be done any time before Christmas. Where would you start? On the other hand, any limitations imposed by digital books will be outweighed by new freedoms and possibilities. I'm already having to engage with briefs that demand illustrations that move slightly, almost unnoticed. Imagine reading a horror story on an iPad late at night, and suddenly the curtain in a small illustration which you've barely looked at for the last three minutes flutters in the wind quite unexpectedly- wonderful stuff!

4: In contrast to the digital copy, a book is 3D. Do you use this to your advantage in your design?

It's always a consideration- particularly in the field of luxury hardbacks. If you want customers to choose such a book over an eBook, then you need to play up all the things which an eBook can't offer- the paper needs to smell good, the cover  can  be debossed and foiled, it should crack open satisfyingly when you first open it. Having said that, I think a Kindle is an equally nourishing thing aesthetically.

5: Are you interested in the gothic genre of literature? Do you find it an interesting genre to design for?

It certainly chimes with my personal tastes- I have a great appetite for horror and anything Victorian in particular. In a way it can be very difficult to illustrate for something you already feel very attached to. I'm currently illustrating covers for a series of fantasy books I've loved since childhood and it's tremendously difficult to actually make decisions and self-edit with material that feels so close to you, in much the same way that it's easier to draw a caricature of your teacher than of yourself- you've lost the necessary objectivity needed to simplify the information.

6: Do you think your individual techniques and the medium you use compliment the Gothic genre?

I often play with imagery and techniques which reference the past, and I often use techniques which necessarily produce stark contrast of light and darkness- all of which finds sympathy in Gothic literature I suppose.

7: How do you transfer your illustrations to a graphical format? Do you think any effect is lost through this?

I always start a piece of work with the final product in mind. Drawings and other physical artwork do lose something when scanned into a computer, but they gain something new at the other end of the process. I typically use scraperboard, which gives high contrast and very clear lines. Digitising the image actually serves to improve those qualities. There is something more intangible lost when you make a physical object into a digital file, but illustration is concerned with communication and the image itself, not the preciousness of the original- that's a concept that belongs to fine art.

8: Does designing a cover for a classic book have its drawbacks?

You have a set of presumptions to counter, but the advantages outweigh this- you can be more oblique and playful with a book everyone thinks they know.

9: How do you use your design to interest the modern audience in a classic book?

The challenge is to interpret something very familiar and established for an audience who is familiar with it. I try and find some aspect of the atmosphere of the book, and hint at the story obliquely, which flatters a certain audience I think.

10: Do you always read the book you're designing for?

Yes, whenever the manuscript is available. Very occasionally the book is unfinished when I create the cover. I usually find an unabridged audiobook, which means I can get through it while running or washing up. I also use a computer programme which converts PDF manuscripts into audiobooks. These sound a bit robotic as you might imagine, but I simply wouldn't have time to get through every book for every cover otherwise. I would hate to be an author and to think that the person who is going to represent my life's work to the customer hasn't even bothered to read it himself.

11: Do you have an agent who helps you find work for book design?

No, not at the moment. I get work through word of mouth, and from people who have seen other covers I have done.

12: Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre are a very famous stories. Did you find it difficult to break the expectations people could have of these books and how their design should look? How did this affect your design?

Other than bearing in mind that the audience will have a level of familiarity with the title, if not the story, I find it best to treat illustrating them like any other book. Trying to respond in some way to hundreds of years of established ideas about those books would be impossible- better to ignore it, and hope that works!

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I have highlighted sections that deal particularly with the physical book and the ebook. I found Joe McLaren's insight extremely interesting. He made it clear that, to make the most of the physical book, designers should revel in textures: "foil printing, registers, belly-bands etc;  all of which fetishise the book as an object, and none of which really serve the content in a physical way", while he also said that ebooks were not necessarily a bad thing, as they encourage more people to read.