Neil Gower on his Bill Bryson covers
Graphic artist Neil Gower discusses his iconic new covers for Bill Bryson’s The Road to Little Dribbling, and the rest of his backlist.
What led to your working on new cover designs for Bill Bryson’s books?
Bill Bryson crept up on me in a way, over many years. In 2013, having previously produced various maps, endpapers and illustrations used inside his books, I was asked to design the cover for a new title, One Summer. The brief: to capture the spirit of 1927, the momentous year in American history it celebrates. The process was rather exciting, the design evolving as I received one chapter at a time, hot from Bill’s computer, ink still wet. The cover was very well received generally but also, crucially, by Bill himself. When he came to write The Road to Little Dribbling, he requested that I devise the cover for that too.
In the manuscript were references to a Frank Newbould poster of the South Downs and to John Hassall’s celebrated ‘Skegness is SO Bracing’ poster. This triggered the quickest, most cursory of doodles in my notebook, simply to get something on paper: the Seven Sisters on the Sussex coast in the background, with the Skegness jolly fisherman prancing across the foreground. The longer I looked at it, the stronger and more complete it seemed. White cliffs (what could be more British?) with amiable character bounding over them? I decided to submit it, thinking they could only say no. It was nodded straight through.
The Road to Little Dribbling was written as a follow-up to Notes from a Small Island, so a new, sister cover for the twentieth anniversary reissue of that was commissioned too. I felt that this needed to be urban and northern, to restore the geographical centre of gravity across the two titles. Hence the view of Knaresborough, with steam train (plus jolly fisherman, bobbing in the water this time). Shortly afterwards the whole back-list landed in my lap.
Were you familiar with Bill Bryson’s books before? What was it in his books that appealed to you in particular? How involved did he get with the covers?
I had read and been smitten by The Lost Continent when it first came out, then enjoyed subsequent books both for pleasure and work. Bill’s books appeal because he not only shares our own fascinations and bemusements, but is also infinitely more forensic in his explorations, and engaging in his explanations of them, than we could ever be.
Bill was sent sketch outlines for each cover concept, but he has been very easy-going and has not requested any changes. So far.
How did you come up with the idea to use familiar paintings by famous American artists to inspire the style of some of these covers?
I was floundering somewhat for an idea for The Lost Continent when Edward Hopper’s ‘Gas’ painting sprang to mind. It offered the perfect cocktail of driving and a vanishing America; the last chance to fill up before a momentous journey. In my version, I decided to give that lonely, dapper attendant a customer. It was an extension of my commandeering of the Jolly Fisherman as a piece of quintessentially British culture; here was our Melancholic Pump-Attendant, symbol of America’s past.
The other design that ‘borrows’ a slice of US culture is Made In America, based on Saul Steinberg’s celebrated New Yorker cover. This idea lent itself particularly well to this book, allowing me plenty of scope for scattering textual references across the country (some of them very subtle for those prepared to look hard) and providing a US-centric view without being sniffily anti-American.
I believe it is important to give clever, witty writing a cover that does it justice; something that is not only visually arresting, but also has layers that only reveal themselves as the book is read. It’s vital also never to underestimate the visual literacy of readers.
How do you get to finished artwork – do you work up a rough, or do you go straight to finished artwork?
Each design goes through the same stages, the first of which is panicky reading and note-taking, convinced that no ideas will come; that this will be the book that finally exposes me as a fraud. The notes give way to scribbled thumbnail sketches, the visual equivalent of thinking out loud.
Ultimately these develop into more refined, full-size pencil sketches and colour samples, which go off to Bill for approval, and then through the Transworld cover meeting. At this stage, a careful balance must be struck between giving a clear idea of one’s intentions while still holding something back to provide (one hopes) that ‘wow’ moment on presenting the final art.
What’s the relationship between the lettering and the images?
That’s a tricky question. In this instance, the author and most of the titles are well known, a built-in level of awareness that gives a head-start in catching a reader’s attention. The most practical difficulty posed by the titles themselves is the variation in length. The pithy title At Home and the expansive The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid both have to sit comfortably within the same space.
Other than noting this potential pitfall, I tend to ignore the title and simply respond to the text. It’s very gratifying how, through doing this, connections between title and image create themselves – the chalky track on The Road to Little Dribbling, for example; the odd juxtaposition of Northern Lights over Istanbul on Neither Here Nor There; the way the Lost Continent is hinted at beyond the dark trees on that cover. The connections are not always obvious, are often just subliminal, but are unmistakeably there.
What materials do you use for painting these illustrations, and what makes you choose them?
The covers are painted entirely in gouache (for the record, Winsor & Newton if there’s a year’s free supply on offer). They provided just the right feel for One Summer and The Road to Little Dribbling – a period poster feel for the former; fresh, flat colours for the latter. Much of Bill’s writing is affectionately nostalgic, and gouache, deployed in carefully gauged palettes, nods to this without being too backward looking. It also has a freshness in print, a vividness that I hope complements Bryson’s writing. He can make familiar words fizz with new life on the page and I try to achieve something similar with imagery.
I have a lovely, airy loft studio in our house on the edge of Lewes in Sussex. Painted a pale yellow, it is my ivory tower with a great view of the South Downs and Ouse Valley.
Are you inspired by that landscape?
As a constant backdrop to my life, yes. But it’s more trifling things that really thrill me and feed into my work. My pulse can be quickened by a shapely espresso cup, or an elegant shirt. One of the most visually striking things I’ve seen lately was a website devoted to Argentine bus-tickets: the combinations of colour and type on the cheapest paper were breathtaking. I also have a sizeable collection of old atlases, maps and guide-books, which never fail to get the creative juices flowing.
What else are you working on at the moment?
I’ve recently finished working with Raymond Blanc and Sir Roy Strong on two elaborate private commissions which were, as you’ll imagine, most entertaining and edifying. There are always plenty of book-jackets on the go and illustrated maps to be painted for anything from book endpapers to the sides of London cabs to Anya Hindmarch tote bags.
I am currently collaborating on a book with author Alex Preston, about which we should be able to say more soon. In short, I don’t have a career so much as a joke that’s got way out of hand. It’s crept up on me in a way, over many years.
