After discovering Coralie Bickford Smith during PPP last year I fell in love with her classic designs for penguin. I also loved her book she recently brought out which was The Fox and the Star. I saw that she had a exhibition and would be doing a talk in the William Morris Gallery so decided to buy a ticket and travel to London to go to the event.
When I got to the exhibition there was around 30 people who were a mix of editors, publishers, designers and illustrators that I could talk to then Coralie did a talk and I took some notes.
- 'Books are the quietest and most constant of friends and the most patient of teachers' Charles William Eliot
- She is a introvert
- Currently creating her 2nd book
- she spent 4 years studying books at university
- Her first job was doing a magazine for sainsburys (Pet Club) but also publishing freelance
- Then she got a job working for penguin
- she takes the history seriously
- One of the first books she designed was Flora, and she was given a bad review
- She has always been interested in cloth and foil
- she always argues her case
- When creating her classic covers she took symbolic elements from the story and makes patterns from it so that the audience who have read the book can relate to it and so it brings in new readers
- Her influences are William Morris (patterns)and William Blake
- Her patterns have rules and guides
- How did she go from a designer to a storyteller?
- She got a bad review on amazon
- She was supposed to be the fox
- Foxes are lost in the city, which is how she can feel when living in London
- she did lots of experimenting with different foils
- the quality of the paper and the texture is like a work of art
- you are never 100% happy with your work
- 5 colours make up the whole book and the colours help tell the story.
- When the star leaves the colours go monotone
- it shows the stages of grif
- The theme is Love and Loss
- Her second book is going to be called The Worm and the Bird
- You can never make something that everybody likes
Her talk was really inspirational because it shows where hard work can get you and Looking at her exhibition I could see the whole process from the initial sketches to the final outcome which helped me see that it is all up to you working and thinking about what you want to achieve.
At the end of the talk I Got to personally meet Coralie and she signed my book. I also asked her if I could ask her some questions through a email and she said she will try and get back to me. She also followed my Design Instagram account ! Overall I was extremely happy that I made the effort to go to London to see this talk!
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