#SYPConf20: A department insight on… Design

Posted on November 10, 2020 in London

Pete Adlington has been Senior Designer at Faber & Faber since 2018. He previously worked at Canongate Books in Edinburgh and London.

What was your journey into the publishing industry?

In 2009, my final year of university studying illustration, I entered and somehow won the Penguin Student Design Award which called for a classic Penguin title to be redesigned, specifically Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. The prize was £1000 and 6 weeks work experience with the two design teams at pre-PRH Penguin on The Strand, Penguin Press headed up by Jim Stoddart and Penguin General under the wonderful John Hamilton who sadly passed away in 2019. The 6 weeks there were quite an eye opener, both in terms of the inner workings of a publisher as large as Penguin and the level of talent in the design teams. Everyone I met was incredibly nice and very generous with their time and patience. I ended my time there having had three covers approved for print and having gained crucial experience of the full cover design process. I would like to say this gave me a clear goal of becoming a book designer but I went back to Manchester and spent 2 years trying to find my path in design, battling a lack of self confidence in my own talents and working in a ski shop part time to pay rent. I had been extremely fortunate in getting my foot in the door at Penguin and after two years in the doldrums, getting whatever design work I could, I recognised that I had to use whatever luck I had been given and make the most of it. I asked to return to Penguin General for a couple more weeks experience which allowed me to feel like I might belong in the industry after all. Soon after this trip Canongate Books in Edinburgh advertised for a Junior Designer and I hastily applied. Canongate’s Art Director, the impossibly talented Rafi Romaya, saw that I had a decent if naïve portfolio but importantly I had industry experience and I could start sending book covers to print without needing much help or training which I think was an attractive prospect at the time. I started there in 2011 and still feel very grateful for that opportunity. If I’m honest my route into the industry has been built less on talent than luck the kindness of others but I’ve worked hard to make the most of what I’ve been given.

What is your current role?

I left Canongate in 2017 and am currently Senior Designer at Faber & Faber, working with a brilliant team under our Art Director Donna Payne. My role is singularly to design book jackets for some of the best authors past and present, including Kazuo Ishiguro, Sebastian Barry, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld and many others. Faber’s well documented design history is, in my own opinion, the greatest of any publishing house and I do feel an added weight to try and carry the torch but it’s important that that involves looking forwards and keeping the work appealing to current tastes. I’m always really busy working across many genres and while the deadlines are generous on paper, in reality it’s a daily push to give each book the time and care it deserves.

How has your job changed during COVID19?

We now have our design meeting over email so you don’t get the round-table conversation that you would do otherwise. This is something I miss as a short conversation can get way more done than an email chain but on the plus side it’s nice not to face a wall of silence when you produce something no-one likes.

Personally I’d say that I struggle to find the right ‘creative’ frame of mind working in my living room, I miss working among a team of designers, seeing the varied work they produce and I miss the varied offerings they put on the snack table.

Please discuss which departments you work closely with, and what you work together on?

Closest departments I work with are Editorial and Production. Editorial are my gateway to deciphering the text. They understand the author, the story, the market, they provide the jacket brief which is what we use to steer the cover in the right direction and they’re the ones who will ruin your cover with a large quote provided at the 11^th hour.

Production are instrumental in making sure that the cover is printed beautifully and the physical product is as good as it can be. This means they will provide advice on stock, inks and special finishes like foils and embossing. They have a really hard job and deserve a lot of respect.

Briefly discuss a project you feel proud to have worked on:

A notable project I’m really pleased to have worked on is the new novel Klara and the Sun from Kazuo Ishiguro and the repackaging of two of his backlist titles Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day. A new novel would be special enough but to have worked on two titles that I remember pulling from my parent’s bookshelves and reading when I was a child gave it an extra level of meaning.

Please discuss any difficulties you face in your role:

Creative block in the face of deadlines, the tendency to steer towards cliché when I’m struggling with ideas, imposter syndrome, technical issues causing logos to disappear on 15,000 printed books, the list is endless but nothing that stops me sleeping at night. There are real problems in the world, mine are nothing.