David Pearson Interview

David Pearson kindley agreed to do an interview with me over the phone, so I got some slightly more in depth answers. Amazingly he had tracked me down to a blog post were I was rude about some of his work, he had the chance to explain why he did the book cover the way he did, which was very interesting. Thanks David!

A lot of your work, a lot of your book covers, could be described to be inspired by vintage design and drawing from classic penguin books and stuff. What's your motivation to take inspiration from those kind of things?

Well there's probably all sorts of reasons, the main one is just I obviously don't ever feel inspired unless I'm looking at something else or researching something. I guess that probably says that I'm not a particularly intuitive designer! Haha! But also I'm just really a bit of a hobbiest and in particular I do collect books and I've always loved books. In fact I was always a bit surprised Penguin gave me a job because I felt like a bit of a groupie and I didn't really think that people like that were supposed to get a job at Penguin. Yeah, you know all my heroes are generally dead, so in trying to emulate their work I think in turn my works tends to look a bit more traditional. And also typography, if you use type as the main driver behind your design especially if your not applying lots of effects to it, like modern day effects, three dimensional things silver and all that lot, your work can very easily look more traditional. There's all sorts of reason really, but yeah generally speaking I love history, I love old books, I love old printing methods. These are the things that really inspire me.

My book's looking, not entirely, but quite a lot of it is going to be about production methods, finishing techniques like die-cutting and foil blocking, looking at those kind of things in design. But obviously looking through your website I noticed, there isn't really any of that, how come you don't indulge in that kind of thing? Your work is very concept driven or really visual rather than looking at the finish, how come you don't go into those kind of things?

Oh I mean I do look at the finish in terms of the books production within reason. Because as you know if you produce a book you could be producing a run of two hundred thousand an they could be printed half over hear and half in the states, its not really realistic to say do letterpress or whatever. What you've really got to do is find a way to emulate that which is realistic in a production sense. So in that respect we do look very closely at production, but if your talking about the very much hands on, almost like a printers workshop aspect then I don't really get that opportunity because I'm working in a commercial design area as oppose to a sort of bespoke design area. I never really get that opportunity.

Alright I should be looking to do more private, personal projects that allow me to do that, but to be honest I just love designing, often on a budget, to the biggest possible audience. I get a bit tired, a lot of designers strive to design things for designers or themselves and I don't really know what they're for and I don't really know why these things are going out into the atmosphere. I'd rather do something that has some sort of purpose. So you know, vanity designing is something that I don't really agree with. It's easy for me to say because I work with books and there's never usually much money to play with. So I don't want to get on my high horse about it, everyones got different jobs to do.

Yeah absolutely, but I understand kind of wanting your design to speak to not just designers but non-designers as well.

Oh yeah thats just really exciting to me, when your mum understands it, thats usually the litmus test.

That kind of leads me on to my next question quite nicely. So do you think those kind of experimental, bespoke finishing techniques have much relevance to non designers. Do you think the average man in the street will notice a die cut or spot varnished book cover for example?

I think so. Yeah its a very good question but the only reason i think so is because if you look at wedding invites for example. Anyone who's getting married is thrust into this environment were they've suddenly got care about finishes and how luxurious or how tactile something is, I think people do have the aptitude for it. I think we can underestimate how image savvy people are. We're so exposed to so many images these days people are very sophisticated in that respect. One of the reasons 'Great Ideas' solved so well it wasn't just because of the design it was the finish, it was the uncoated stock and the tactile finish to it and that can be really under estimated within design. So sort of going back slightly I really think what I do is very much bound within the production, it can really get you out of jail sometimes if you've done something quite average it can pull back some of the quality in the production process. Thats one thing I will really miss if books increasingly become digitised is that ability to play with the finishes.

I think I looked on your blog the other day and I noticed you picked up on the lurid green on the Penguin popular classics covers. Its a really interesting talking point in that it is a vile colour, your absolutely right, but the thing is, its supposed to be vile. the main argument with those colours, they're basically a two quid book covers and they were originally quiet a nice pastally colour so it was all very gentile and sophisticated. There was a lot of mutterings in house at penguin, that a lot of people would rather then buy those versions than the ten pound black classic versions that Penguin also sell because they actually found them more attractive. So the whole point of the green series was to almost; its like a sort of Tesco's value version. Its the only time in my life I've ever been given the brief to make them look worse, that was it! We had to make them look less attractive so we used that horrible green colour. It's mad isn't it really, they were just worried that they would strip away sales from their more expensive versions.

Oh wow, very, very interesting.

Yeah, yeah. Oh god, I go into a bookshop and I see a whole wall of that green and it makes me want to be sick!

I never thought you would track me back to my blog!

Oh god no, I'm very thorough! You'll be running scared now.

Ok well my next question, we kind of touched on it a moment ago, is were do you see the future of graphic design going? In twenty years time do you think there will still be books printed and what kind of quantity how important do think that will be in ten or twenty years time?

Well, I think there will still be books but I honestly don't think there will be too many. But you know, books and printed matter will always be required in certain circumstances like catalogues and novels will always have a representation in paper form. But other books like reference manuals and reference books and car manuals, there is no reason why they can't be digitised. if you think of a student for example in a lecture theatre if they can have their whole years books on a palm reader that gets very exciting and it makes a lot of sense. I'm certainly not against this kind of movement at all. To a certain extent its a good way of passing on information. But yeah I think increasingly, especially with what I do, book objects will be increasingly more, media driven. I think there will be more glorious and more fine editions around. I think the cheaper paperbacks will fall away a little bit, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think that it will exist but in a much reduced state as it will with all print. We can't keep cutting trees down at the rate that we are doing. I think it makes sense. The next generation, it won't make sense to them because the won't have grown up with books. That's a kind of rambly answer but the emphasis is on the generation shift. If you grow up without books your not going to need books.

Where you involved with graphic design pre the introduction of the Apple Mac? Hows the role of the computer changed while you've been involved with graphic design?

Well it was just coming in as I was studying. I'm 31 now so it's kind of always been there for me. I'm maybe not best qualified to discuss. Maybe five years before that would have been the real way in sort of thing. Macs were just starting to creep into colleges when I was there. So yeah I'm very much used to that really. But having said that you only really get something interesting out of a computer if you put something interesting into it. You can't really start on a computer and hope to create wonderful work, it just doesn't happen. I would always try and mention that its a tool and nothing more, as much as people want to celebrate virtual effects. The other thing is I naturally distrust short cuts. I value process even if it means I take ages to do something I'd rather do it the long way round. I'm interested in what that does to your head while your working on it, the way you're evaluating constantly, thats the process for me. Its not hitting the effect that will do something on your behalf.

Has the role of the computer, in terms of communication and blogs, changed while you've been a graphic designer?

Oh absolutely yeah. Blogs are still quite a recent thing I suppose. But yeah its great for me to know what someone on the other side of the Atlantic is doing with book design. There's a sort of solid core group of book designers, we all kind of know each other now because we know what each other are working on and we commission each other. It all stems from blogs really. I mean I can't speak highly enough of a well written design blog, I think these people should be commended. That surely will be the next generation of star designers, they will be people that have a blog presence and quite a strong personality through that.