Jo Walker: The idea for these book jackets came from our publicity director Michelle Kane who is also Chimamanda’s publicist. She suggested basing the series style on African head wrap patterns which was a brilliant, original idea – something that broke out of the look of Chimamanda’s previous jackets and had the potential to create a beautiful series which was very exciting.
Julian Humphries and I started researching patterns and decided it would be great to come up with something original so I started painting elements to put together to create the designs. I laid down the basic pattern elements and then brought them into photoshop and created the colours and patterns digitally so that I would have the freedom to chop and change them and create 4 designs that worked well together.
We wanted the designs to be really bold so made the typography quite small. Chimamanda is such a respected writer that her name has recognition even if you don’t plaster it in huge type on the jacket. Sometimes, (contrary to popular belief) small type has more impact than large and in this case I think it really worked.
Series design for Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie‘s Half Of A Yellow Sun, Americanah, The Thing Around Your Neck, Purple Hibiscus published by 4th Estate.
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