Interview with Chris Wharton

Chris Wharton is a freelance illustrator and designer who is based in London. I was interested in interviewing him after my previous blog post and he was nice enough to reply.

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

No. Although ebooks are lightweight, many volumed, legible in low light  and fantastic prop to pose with on public transport I think there will always be a place for good old ink and paper. Personally I would never use or own an ebook. I spend 80% of my day staring at at computer screen and the thought of relaxing in front of one makes my eyes feel like sand paper (more so). I think ebooks have opened up the world of reading to a wider audience and reading as a past time has only increased in years but I think essentially we are tactile creatures that like to hold, feel, sniff and run our eyes over the real McCoy. Plus theres a whole market of limited edition books and signed copies that will never die out.

2: Does this affect your design process? Influence your approach to designing the physical book?

I've never designed for an ebook, nor read one so I'm probably not the best person to ask this. However I will speculate that when designing for the physical book you can naturally play with its dimensions; wrap around designs, die cut parts, embossing and various bells and whistles that bring a cover to life and invite the on-looker to participate and investigate the cover further, which is essentially the whole point of having a cover.

3: Would you find the front cover of a digital book more limiting to design for?

I don't know, do they semi-animate ebook covers or anything fancy? I guess that would be the counter argument to the one above. You're limited by physical dimension but abundant in effects and motion in the ebook.

4: Would you take advantage of a book's physicality in your design?

If the design physicality lent itself to the content of the book or was a relevant exaggeration or elaboration I think its natural to play with the dimensions. I hate to use myself as an example but, if you look at some of the Hemingway covers I mocked up some of those make full use of the play and relationship between the front and back covers. the Bulls head peeking on to the front page from the back, when you turn to the back you can see the enormity of the bull and the exaggeration of fear and danger that the book tells of. By delaying the on-lookers reading of the illustration you can conjure different ideas or effects. 
Naturally other effects convey different concepts - embossing and gold foiling speak of quality and opulence, die cutting usually has some device relating to revealing or conducting the eye in a particular manner.

5: How do you use your design to interest the modern audience in a classic book? For example, your Ernest Hemingway series. 

I think stylistically the Hemingway series was well received with a touch of fluke. I think theres a renaissance of 50's style illustration-minimal illustrations which manage to maintain a sense of personality. The book being authored by a post-war writer it naturally lent itself to this style which happens to be in vogue. But in general, I think there are myriad ways of illustrating classic themes with contemporary styles. If you take a look at the Penguin 'deluxe edition' series its a collection of well known illustrators invited to illustrate the cover of their favourite books, its amazing you have Chris Ware drawing Voltaire, Tom Gauld with the Three Musketeers, Charles Burns drawing the Jungle and Jason with Jack Kerouac. These are all illustrators with very distinct styles drawing subjects from through out history. I suppose as long as your draw something convincing and engaging people will respond to it.

6: Do you think that interactive book designs are most suited toward a younger audience? Could they still interest adults?

I think it would be easy to assume that, but I was walking along the south bank yesterday and on the tube and tonnes of old(er) people are getting to grips with technology. and if you think about it you can magnify the page, read in the dark and they're light and portable, which is ideal for the older generation. So bearing this in mind its only a matter of time before interaction is just another aspect that they get to grips with too. Also this divide between old and young with technology is only a divide at present, as this young generation grows older and in the next 40- 50 years there won't be a single person that wasn;t born using a computer and all the inherent toys within.

7: Matte vs. gloss?

I make pretty pictures and then the publishers tweak and play with the results. But personally - matte.

9: On a whole, do you prefer reading ebooks or the physical copy of a book?

I think I've only ever read maybe two books online and this was only out of necessity (I was on holiday and ran out of things to read), it wasn't a terrible experience but neither was it as relaxing or as enjoyable as reclining with an actual book. I'll always prefer the hard copy.

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Chris Wharton's responses were very interesting to consider. He touched on what I had learned from my research; how ebooks are making books and reading more popular, but there is still a market who prefer physical copies. He also noted that there were different methods available to the designer when producing artwork for the physical copy.