Tom Howey – Designer

I've designed hundreds of book covers, and dozens of complete books, during 20 years in publishing in London and Berlin.

My emphasis is on working closely with authors and editors to create designs that work. A book cover should look good, but aesthetics aren't enough on their own. To be successful a design needs to communicate the content, position itself correctly within the genre, and appeal to its potential readers.

I worked in bookshops for several years, so have seen first-hand how books behave in their natural habitat. I've contributed myself to books about typography, architecture and politics. I read widely, and I enjoy learning about new subject areas, and figuring out how best to represent them visually.

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Press reviews of one of my previous designs:

The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti – Winner of 'Art Book of the Year' at the 2014 Los Angeles Book Festival

"The art book to beat all art books" – Huffington Post

"It’s beautiful" – New York Times

"A piece of art in and of itself" – Examiner

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Praise from authors, as passed on by editors:

"It is perfect!!! Please thank the designer for me." –RM

"I'm seriously delighted, do please let the designers know, won't you?" –KM

"I love these. This is just the sort of thing I envisioned. My thanks to the designer." –JS

"There are five of the authors in the room just at the moment and they all went 'wow!' when they saw the covers!" –EC & DB

"We are very pleased with the cover designs! Bravo to the artist who synthesized our various suggestions and images into such a beautiful design! We love it. Love it." –SAS, JEF & TJG

"I'm really pleased with the design that the team have come up with... could you please send on my compliments and let them know how happy I am with their work?" –KK

'The author is too excited to choose: "Love them!!!"' –MM

'The author has replied with the exact words "Wow, they both look fantastic!"' –MJ

'The author absolutely loved the concept! She "adores them both" and wanted to express her "gratitude to the incredible design team."' –SG

'The author said the suggestions were "amazing."' –ME

"Thank you for designing such a great cover for my recently published book–I'm very happy with the result and I've already received a lot of positive feedback." –HL

"Please do pass on my thanks to the design team for their work, and for so clearly working to my preferences." –NA