And Other Stories announces today (16 August 2023) that it has a new series design for almost all its future titles publishing from September 2023.
About the series’ design:
After close consultation with authors, booksellers and our stakeholders, and a year-long development period involving four world-class designers, we are launching a new series design for future And Other Stories titles. In line with our international, ecological publishing from outside the metropolitan centre, we chose ecological suppliers, including North of England partners, as well as a Brazilian designer.
And Other Stories’ design brief and concept was simple: it’s the words that matter. Our authors are extraordinary. Their words are all we need to invite readers into the text. After a design process involving four world-class designers, all of whose ideas we invaluable, we chose the proposal by Brazilian designer Elisa von Randow (Alles Blau studio). As with all typographic designs, the font is the star, and Elisa’s chosen font is Stellage. Sui generis and strong, it is a display typeface released in 2020 by SM Foundry, a digital type foundry based in the Netherlands. Full of personality (surprising touches such as the arrowing comma and angular brackets) and impeccably designed, it conveys quality and a modern, contemporary voice. Our logo has also been updated, removing the diamond around the ampersand and using the Stellage font for our name. Our inside pages will continue to be set in our choices since 2021: Albertan Pro and Linotype Syntax. The series will be launched with a campaign using the hashtags #judgeabookbyitscover and #puttingwordsfirst.
Designer Elisa von Randow says:
It’s always a challenge to develop a book cover design, even more so when the design has to last for a long time and relate to different types of authors and narrative styles. Choosing simplicity and bringing the text to the cover was the starting point suggested by the editors. The next step was to choose a typeface that would be efficient to print, but would also convey the contemporary and bold spirit of the publisher’s catalogue. After many studies, the simplest and most radical idea was finally chosen.
Publisher Stefan Tobler says:
I can’t help thinking of Derek Walcott’s beautiful poem that says ‘The time will come / when, with elation, / you will greet yourself arriving / at your own door’. After twelve years of publishing, it feels like And Other Stories’ design has come home. Elisa’s design captures our press’s spirit: there’s room for play and humour. It’s thought-provoking in style and content. It’s contemporary and a look that will last.
There’s also something right about our series starting in September with two books by Lutz Seiler. His poetry collection Pitch & Glint first appeared in 2000 in Suhrkamp’s iconic Willy Fleckhaus-designed series, a series that launched in 1963 and has long been an inspiration. As a nod to that series, in each book we will we have a full-page photo of the author on the final page. Seiler himself is a writer who started work as a tradesman and has a strong love of craft and manual making, and we are looking forward to sending him these well-made objects.
About the series’ sustainability and Northern covers:
The cover stock paper is Colorplan card, as developed by Hull’s world-leading paper merchants, the B Corp-certified G . F Smith. It is made sustainably with FSC-certified paper at the James Cropper mill in the Lake District – in other words, a Northern collaboration. And the cover and spine sport black biodegradable foil. The new books are beautifully and carefully crafted objects – great for displays in bookshops and very tactile.
Thinking further about the ecological footprint, we have chosen a new FSC paper for inside pages with low carbon emissions and chosen Clays as our printer. Clays has a clear focus on constantly improving the sustainability of its operations. It is the first UK printer to sign up to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), to which it recently submitted its emission reduction targets for approval.
About the books & catalogue:
More about our autumn/winter 2023-24 season here in our catalogue, which you will always find on our page for the book trade.