The Blog

If Book Cover Designers Used Stock Photos

2012-05-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

How do book designers decide what to put on the cover of a book? What if they didn't have a huge budget for a photoshoot? What if they were just damned lazy? Inspired by Rico Monekon's entertaining record covers from stock photos, we've been wondering how some well-known books might look if the cover designers had resorted to stock photo libraries for inspiration:

You can play this game too! Find an online photo library and type the title of your favourite book into the search field.

Mum's the word

2012-03-08T10:27:00.002-08:00

This year for Mother's Day we decided try and collect a few of our favourite fictional mums. This proved to be harder than we thought. After all, how many novels do you remember where the fun only starts once the parents have been removed? Perhaps Mum and Dad are working abroad, or they are in quarantine with some mystery disease; in James and the Giant Peach a runaway rhino has gobbled up both of James' parents before the story has begun!

Here is our selection of fab fictional mothers including Kanga, Marmee March, Molly Weasley, Moominmamma, Missis Pongo, Caroline Ingalls, and many more. We included Mrs Bennet, although there was much discussion in TLGCHQ office about whether she really was a good mum or not - whatever you think about Mrs B's parenting skills she threw everything into thinking about her daughters' futures.

What a Carry On

2012-02-10T03:45:00.000-08:00

Earlier this year Charlie Brooker suggested that it really was time to stop printing 'Keep Calm and Carry On' onto things. He is right and for all the right reasons; as he points out "it's time we, as a species, ceased to be impressed by this sort of thing. We're better than that."

I sometimes like to imagine that somewhere there is a house which contains every Keep Calm product somewhere inside. There must be enough variations to fill a maybe larger than average semi: duvet covers, teapots, clothes, rugs, doormats, kitchenware, chairs, key-rings, etc.

After a recent visit to one of the larger gift trade fairs I can reveal that maybe the torrent is lessening. There were definitely fewer products, and perhaps the end is in sight. Not exactly dead yet, although the arrival of Keep Calm... toilet paper may (and probably should) prove to be the final nail in the coffin. Unless, of course, someone is currently putting together a range of Keep Calm coffins? Keep Calm and er...

National Libraries Day: 4th February

2012-01-31T20:25:00.000-08:00

The Literary Gift Company is delighted to be launching a new range of bags which celebrate our passion for libraries. We are donating 50p to the National Libraries Day campaign for every bag sold. The bags feature original hand-lettered designs by our artist Geoff Sawers who says:

“It probably helps that my mum is a librarian, but I have always thought of libraries as magical places. I remember childhood days when I had to go into work with my mum; I’d wander around, pulling out big picture books to look through and make drawings from (it was a medical library), always imagining that there would be more unknown treasures down the next aisle. So, I was delighted to get involved in the campaign to raise awareness about public libraries by doing the artwork for these bags. We chose three quotations to begin – Borges’s ‘paradise-as-a-kind-of-library’ image is a perfect one to start with, we thought, redolent of the secret library scene in the film of Eco’ “The Name Of The Rose,” all impossible curves and angles, and books, books, books hidden around every corner. Virginia Woolf’s line “I ransack public libraries & find them full of sunk treasure” comes from her diary for August 1921; “I want nothing but quiet & an active brain” she went on. Finally, we chose a more modern line, Germaine Greer’s patient defence of the value of libraries and reading. I hope you’ll all enjoy these bags. What’s more, they are the perfect size for dragging home a dozen or so battered hardbacks with you on the bus. “

Map Llenorion Cymru / Literary Map of Wales

2011-10-20T05:53:00.000-07:00

If the Literary Gift Company did holidays, I don't think we could do better than offering people a stay at St. Deiniol's Library in North Wales. It's Gladstone's personal Theological library, and you can stay in the rooms; I had a few days there last week working on our forthcoming Literary Map of Wales. My old boss Ieuan had recommended it to me years ago, saying 'if you ever need somewhere to work quietly', and I did feel it had the most beautiful, relaxing atmosphere for working I've ever found. I had a conversation with a woman one lunch-time about a retreat she had been on at a monastery somewhere. It was lovely, she explained, but everyone was so jolly, and chatty, and the meals were so huge, the monks all like Friar Tuck, and in the evenings in the visitor's part, they had a little bar open... 'I had a great week," she said, "but it wasn't at all the week I expected. St. Deiniol's is much more like what I'd expected of a retreat than the monastery was!"

So anyway, I got a lot more work done on the map in three days than I'd expected. It's been running over time slightly, as my collaborator Gwyn Tudur Davies keeps e-mailing me, saying 'here's a dozen more names it'd be great to include, and can you fit them in to the most crowded part of the map...'; I am just starting on the final artwork now (Ynys Mon, above) and if I forget to sleep or eat I might just have it ready by Christmas. Seriously, though, Gwyn's knowledge of the literature is far deeper than mine and I have learnt a lot as I've worked on this. And in a way, Wales is perfect for the format: this applies to both the UK and USA literary maps too, but I can't think of anywhere in the world where the connection between many writers and their own particular patch is so strong and so deeply imbued as it is in Wales.

Hwyl fawr, hwyl am y tro, as we always used to say whilst tripping over the step on the way out of the Brunswick Arms in Abertawe.
- Geoff Sawers (Him Indoors)

Bookends

2011-10-18T04:17:00.000-07:00

In my quest to familiarise myself with our stock I found vinyl bookends, they may not technically be literary related but I have fallen in love with them! As someone who loves vinyl records, has a record player and actually listens to records this makes me smile! And no I am not particularly old!

I love the idea that old abandoned vinyl LPs have been given a new purpose in life and it’s to prop up the other love in my life, books. I passionately loath those ugly metal monstrosities that you usually find caressing bookends. Now I can have something funky, unusual and far more attractive stopping my beloved books falling to the floor.

Looking through the bookends I thought that they would all be the unpopular records, I found one by the 'Choir of the Russian Church of the Metropolitan of Paris' sung in Russian, recorded in Britain! Personally I have never heard of them, but I am sure they were popular at the time. However, the classics of Nat King Cole and Elvis are also in our collection of recycled vinyl's which I have to admit was a tad shocking. I know that everyone has iPods and download music now, but a few years ago vinyl made a retro comeback and it suddenly became cool again. Maybe the cool kids don't listen to Elvis. Ironically, HMV still sell vinyl records of modern bands, they don't sound the same as the really old vinyls that have that authentic 'recorded in my garage' sound, but who knows maybe in a few years Rihanna and Justin Bieber's vinyl records will be recycled into quirky bookends?!

New Recruit

2011-09-20T07:14:00.000-07:00

I am the newest recruit to the book loving cult that is the Literary Gift Company and I decided to say Hi to all our customers and tell you the story of a young lady’s first week at her new job….

Arriving bright and early for the first day at her new job, Charlotte (the heroine of this tale), was greeted by Dani and Matthew who although smiling and very welcoming, informed her that they “are not morning people, so please don’t feel like you have to be chipper!” After this Charlotte felt far more relaxed, for although she tries to be jolly at all times, she finds mornings have never agreed with her, and in actual fact make her feel quite unwell. (As a side I would like to add that Charlotte aka me decided to be all healthy for this new job and walk to work every morning, however, once I realised that driving meant that I could spend longer in bed this idea sadly died a sudden death having only lived a day).

Now back to the story, which I will now seamlessly change as I skip through the fields of genres (sorry! I may have got a little carried away and over excited when I was told I could write on the blog! OOPSY!)…

Having arrived at work, on foot, on time AND without getting lost I was given a cup of tea and a tour of our little building. I say little but this gives the wrong impression. We have three rooms on the ground floor, all of which feature stunningly high ceilings, and two that have marble fireplaces, that are unfortunately non-operational! Otherwise in the depths of winter you would find me huddled in front of the open fire sneakily reading a book!

One thing that has astounded me in my first week is the amount of tea and coffee my new colleagues drink! Now I am a tea drinker, or at least I thought I was, compared to these guys I am an amateur! I have maybe 3-4 cups of tea a day and no coffee. I thought this was a lot… how sheltered my life has been until now!

One of my first jobs was to learn and find all our products. Whilst sifting through the stock room familiarising myself with everything an eerie silence fell upon me. A blinding light suddenly shot from above, piercing the growing darkness. Trembling I struggled to move my increasingly heavy legs, propelling my body towards the light. Blade runner was its destination, Blade runner I must see. The aliens above obviously love that book and so must I. I must discover the ever alluding answer to: ‘Do Androids dream of electric sheep?’ (WALLETS COMING SOON!)

After my alien encounter I was not expecting any more excitement, however, the greatest surprise of all was about to slap me round the face…

Gazing through the shelves my heart began to flutter as our eyes met. Never had I felt, so instantaneously, so whole-heartedly, so strongly. It was simply love at first sight! My life would not be complete until I possessed him, my love, my life, my other half. He completes me. My squashed bookmark man!

So thus my first week ended, I packaged, weighed, drank tea, fell in love and had an alien encounter!!! Shocking! Hopefully next week will be slightly more sedate.

But my tale does not end there as luckily for me my new colleagues had their priorities firmly in line with mine, the first thing on the agenda … work drinks! Having moved to the area and not knowing anyone this was the perfect welcome! The mixture of a good pub, alcohol and laughter was the ideal ending to my first week.

But still my story does not end, there is still one more piece to this puzzle that must be told…

As the clouds brewed on a chilling Saturday morning the silence of the Literary Gift Company was shattered by the piercing cry of broken glass. Long bony fingers crept over the windowpane as droplets of red stained the jagged edges. Attached to these disgusting fingers was a body, small and grotesque, the crimes of its life etched on the face. Slithering through the window the body skulked around the hallway deciding which door to violate and destroy.

Having gone to all the trouble of breaking not one but two windows in completely different areas of the building (one in the little under the stairs cup washing room we have and the other in the stock room), and the effort of squeezing themselves through the smallest window possible, the trusty burglars made a disappointing discovery… The room they had imagined their riches to be kept was full of tea towels and mugs! I can imagine their little faces as they surveyed the spoils of all their hard work only to be welcomed by bright yellow rubber duckies reading books.

The clues had been laid and now it was time to introduce ‘The Detective.’ He may not have been dressed in tweed, have his trusty companion Dr. Watson, or smoke a pipe, but I have total, ok maybe partial faith, in our very own Sherlock Holmes. He will be able to find the deviants who broke into our bat cave! The size of the window that they squeezed through helped him in his deduction that the culprits were not fat, round or even slightly chunky. Instead the villains of this piece were positively skinny, if anything they probably needed a good pie! Following our trusty detective was his side-kick, the CSI guy. Unfortunately not dressed in a blue jumpsuit but instead casually in jeans and a t-shirt, he opened his forensic kit to reveal the staple item that completes any CSI … a torch. Inspecting all the door frames, broken glass, corners and mugs (just in case our robbers got thirsty) with his trusty torch, he began work. Gently rubbing his brush of black powder over every possible entry point, he began his quest for fingerprints…

The saga of the broken window is an ongoing investigation so I shall keep you all informed of our trusty detectives progress. Until next time…..

Teapots - an insight into our buying decisions

2011-08-09T02:03:00.000-07:00

We are currently working out which products to stock in the run up to Christmas. This is obviously frightfully dull - samples being sent, board games to try out (you can't stock something without playing it first!), jewellery to try on and so on. Everyone working at Literary HQ has a say and our most recent debate has been about teapots. We sell plenty of mugs but would love more literary tableware. Enter the literary teapot:

It's definitely literary. It is also a nice solid piece of porcelain. I think the lid is lovely but we all remain unconvinced. One of our team has an actual allergy to typeface mish-mashing, another of us thinks the combination of hand-drawn design and author photographs is tricky. Matthew has an issue with the reference to '1984' which is the title of the film, not the novel. My personal issue is the lack of female authors - not even one!

Are we being too fussy? What do you think?

We're on the move

2011-06-09T01:55:00.000-07:00

In 3 weeks The Literary Gift Company is moving. We have outgrown our current premises (hurrah!) and have found something new about a mile up the road. The old place has, over time, functioned as a workshop, a residence and a porn studio (before our time!) The new place is part of an enormous Georgian building with 'many original features'. Our floor includes an oval shaped room which will help us fulfill a few of our West Wing fantasies: we'll definitely need a 'Sit. Room'. We will have more space to work and get organised - we may set up a mini photography studio (nothing X-rated!)

Of course this all means that we will have to have a mini clear-out of stock to help the moving process. So watch this space for an early summer sale.

Literary Map of the USA.

2011-04-26T08:36:00.000-07:00

Now that our US literary map is out, I thought I'd say a word or two about how I did it. The first one (the UK map) was quite eclectic in its' selection of authors; it was just my personal favourites, although it covered most of the big names. If anyone were to ask 'Where is so-and-so?' I could just say, 'I'm sorry, I've never read them.'

This time, however, on the USA map, although we have not attempted to be definitive - I think that's impossible - we have tried to be a little more representative. We worked with our old friend Bridget Hannigan who produced long lists of possible names, partly from her own knowledge (she is an American herself) and partly by going through lists of Pulitzer prize-winners and so on. I added mine, and Matthew in the office supplied several more. There are still one or two high-profile ommissions; Ayn Rand and Norman Mailer for instance are both writers who have sold hugely and been widely influential, but at the end of the day you cannot please everybody and to include them would have meant leaving out someone else about whom we felt more strongly.

Once I had chosen an orthographic projection of the contiguous states that cinched in the north a little so that it would all fit on the paper, we divided up the names we had, state by state. They all have some kind of connection to where they are placed; it might be where they were born, lived and died, but in other cases it is just from a single book or poem. Very few people could only be placed in one location. The state boundaries are still visible in some places, although California has spilled over into Nevada, for instance, and New England is so crowded that the names for Maryland, Virginia, and a couple of other states have been displaced to the West and South. Hawaii and Alaska would not fit graphically, so I chose to just draw them at the extreme North- and South-West. Finally, on the East, I included a spray of names coming out from New York who are largely Americans who have made their name in Europe (James Baldwin, Gertrude Stein) or immigrants.

I love the way the relative density of the coasts and interior tells its' own story about America; the Native American names that crop up in the mid-West, the Hispanic names further south. And then I settled down to ink it all in; a process that took some weeks. I amazed myself by doing it all without a single correction; on the UK map I mis-spelt the very first word!

-Geoff Sawers (Him Indoors)

2011-03-30T01:10:00.000-07:00

Sign made for me by my 6 year-old son.

I'm just writing to say that the Literary Map (UK) has just been reprinted, with two new names added - there is a competition to win a copy over on our facebook page.

Literary Map of the USA (in progress)

2011-03-07T05:27:00.000-08:00

Several weeks after starting on the lettering, Him Indoors hits the Deep South.

Happy World Book Day

2011-03-02T14:25:00.000-08:00

I really hope you have a fab one! We're offering 10% off everything at The Literary Gift Company today. Just enter WBD2011 at the checkout.
Although we'd love you to visit us online we'd also like to urge you to visit your local library and/or bookshop. There are some brilliant events happening up and down the country, and libraries and bookshops need your support right now.

Poetry Instead of a Card

2011-02-01T07:01:00.001-08:00

We are beginning to expand our range of pamphlets from Candlestick Press. This range of 'Poetry Instead of a Card' collections is a wonderful concept and exactly the sort of thing we love at The Literary Gift Company; not only is it a literary version of an everyday item, but it is much more ecologically sound than 'ordinary' greetings cards - you might recycle cards, but a volume of poetry is something you will want to keep and enjoy again and again. Find our range here.

A book

2011-01-14T02:49:00.000-08:00

We have decided to stock A Book. The Literary Gift Company is all about books, but we don't generally sell them. We don't have to: there are many many talented booksellers out there! However we think there might be a handful of titles which will fall under our remit of celebrating literature and this is one of them:

Ever wanted to recreate Mrs Ramsay's boeuf en daube? Now is your chance.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-07T10:00:00.000-08:00

Apologies for being a bit quiet over here. We had an amazing Christmas at The Literary Gift Company which didn't leave us much time for anything much apart from despatching parcels of literary loveliness here, there and everywhere. Thank you to all of you who have supported us during 2010; we are planning to expand our site and offer even more unusual and gorgeous book-related products throughout 2011. If there is anything you would particularly like to see on the site do let us know.

Tanks a lot...

2010-11-17T07:27:00.000-08:00

We're very excited about a new product hitting the site around now.
Bookity has designed and made a range of Secret Book Boxes: books with a hidden compartment in them. Its an old idea, but it has been revisited with style and a beautiful attention to detail. What would YOU keep in one?

The Map is Finished:

2010-11-02T13:21:00.001-07:00

Guest post from Him Indoors

2010-10-06T04:44:00.000-07:00

Two weeks later, I reach East Anglia... still quite a lot of lettering to go though. And nobody has spilt orange juice on it yet.
In an attempt to pre-empt a possible wave of "I can't believe you haven't included my favourite poet" messages, let me just point out at this stage that I'm not attempting to be definitive in my selection of authors; it's a personal choice, and largely of writers who have a strong connection to place. Most of the big names are there, but essentially, the names just come from our own bookshelves. Some might seem a bit obscure, but mean something to me; and I hope to a few others too.
Oh, and I'm not responsible for the 'product placement' in this photo. I'd never put a cup of tea that close to my work!

A little peek

2010-09-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

A quick peek at a forthcoming Literary Gift Company work of art. Him Indoors is working on a literary map of this country:

Too much Penguin?

2010-09-15T06:21:00.000-07:00

When we started The Literary Gift Company we weren't too bothered about Penguin mugs. This isn't because they aren't gorgeous, it was simply because they were EVERYWHERE, including Waterstone's; they have been phenomenally successful. We have realised, however, that not many places stock a large range of the mugs: it's fairly easy to track down the Christies and the Austens, but less so other authors. Also Waterstone's is turning many of its non-book areas into Paperchase concessions which don't stock any of the mugs at all. So we've decided to bring some into our store - hopefully building up to stock the whole range. They're tucked away in Homewear - near the back so they don't get in the way of more unusual items. We're in two minds about this as our vision is not to be too mainstream; your thoughts are welcome!

Gift Fair

2010-09-07T15:29:00.000-07:00

I spent the day at The Autumn Fair today. It's a massive trade fair for gift buyers held at the NEC. Massive is the word; after a few hours my brain was beginning to melt. And if I see another cream coloured balsa wood heart I will set fire to it. (Do people really have houses full of cream coloured balsa wood stuff?). I didn't see too much in the way of literary gifts which is just fine, it much more fun sourcing unusual products from more out-of-the-way places (as well as making it ourselves - that's great fun). What I have tracked down today is a few possibilities for bookends. We don't stock any at the moment and that's because we hadn't found any good enough ones before now. Hooray, I feel a new store department coming on...

Now we are one

2010-08-02T03:57:00.000-07:00

It's our first birthday today.
Thank you so much to everyone who has helped, supported, ordered, liked, linked, blogged, tweeted and loved. We couldn't have done it without you.
Love from Dani and the team

ps. it's 10% off everything today. Enter voucher code 'dickens' at the checkout.

Spotted in a second hand bookshop 2

2010-06-30T02:35:00.000-07:00

Saw this recently. I searched but couldn't find the "Actual Modern Classics" section.

Books. Bar. What's not to love?

2010-06-10T08:10:00.001-07:00

http://www.vestaldesign.com/projects/bookbar/