Interview with David Wyatt

David Wyatt is an illustrator, who has done a number of work for books. I found his work Illusionology for Templar's 'Ology' series (see previous blog post) fitting for my research.

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

I'm led to believe that books in their physical state are selling less, but e-books have filled the hole. As long as people are reading just as much, I'm not really concerned too much as to how the words are delivered to them. My only worry would be if the physical book became a bit of a dinosaur and the market dictated that they would no longer be commercially viable. At the moment, it's good to have the choice. I find novels are perfectly good to read on a Kindle (for example), but books with illustrations really suffer on a digital device.

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

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

 

 At the moment I still design covers with physical books in mind. I have yet to design one specifically for a digital edition. But I have noticed the digital revolution has affected the way covers are presented. Very often a customer's first contact with a book is via a website; images are displayed quite small and as a consequence there is pressure to make the design quite punchy (high contrast, heightened colours, a general lack of subtlety). This makes covers look good on a web browser, but not so good on a hard copy.

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

 

I do find it particularly satisfying designing covers that don't just have an image slapped on - I like to think of a book as a precious, crafted object. My favourite projects are the ones where I get to design the typography, suggest print effects, etc. Illusionology is a good example of that. We threw every production technique at that one - embossing, foiling, the latest 3D lenticular technology - it's a lovely looking book and very tactile. Hopefully all the print finishing tricks helped create an atmosphere - they weren't just used gratuitously (in my opinion!)

5: How do you use your design to interest the modern audience in a classic book? If you had to design for one. 

I suppose I can't help but bring a modern feel to a Classic book, due to all the influences around me. I like to keep one foot in the past as a lot of my favourite artists came from a different era, but I've never been interested in recreating their style (even though I frequently borrow things from them). It's more about translating their sensibilities into the current age.

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

 

I'm not an expert in this, so I can't answer with any great conviction. I have seen a few interactive storybooks on friend's iPads; only a few seem to genuinely work for me. I do think there is a lot of possibility there; the problem for me is that it involves a lot of different disciplines (programming, animation, etc.) so ideally you would need a lot of technical knowledge before you could realise a good idea. They are definitely great fun for kids - I'm not sure how you could do a similar thing for an adult audience; I suppose you'd have to invent an entirely new genre. I'm sure it will happen one day...

 

7: Matte vs. gloss? 

 

Matte covers always look good; often some spot varnishing on the design really brings the image to life. The problem is you have to alter your palette a bit as matte laminates tend to drain out the colours. Gloss is good if you want some really 'in your face' colours.

 

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

Going back to the first answer, I'm a Kindle convert, but I find it impossible to enjoy illustrated books on a screen (or comics). Originally I bought my Kindle so I could see how Larklight (a series of heavily illustrated books I did with Philip Reeve) looked converted to digital - it was a bit of a disaster. There was nothing wrong with the quality of the illustrations having been pixelized - the problem was they didn't sit with the words properly. The book was designed so the text and pictures worked closely together - that went out the window on the e-book version, unfortunately.

---

It was interesting to receive the opinion of someone who has designed a lot of illustrations for books, both as covers and as interiors. I found that he touched on something very true when he said that he did not think illustrations transferred as well on a kindle and were much more impressive as a physical copy. He also said that because you would see the front cover as a small image on a website, designers were having to make their covers more vivid and less subtle, which perhaps did not look as good on a physical copy. It must be difficult to reach the right balance.