Chris Wormell illustration

 Chris Wormell is an illustrator who specialise in Linocut. He recently designed the cover for 'The Book of Dust' recently named Waterstones book of the year. I bought this book and was fascinated in the cover instantly. Seeing that straight away it was a Linocut I was surprised. Recent book covers that I have seen for example the cover for 'A Handmade's Tale' Margret Atwood  and ' Turtles all the way down' John Green take a much more graphic approach to their design. Bold shapes and type. But seeing a cover that has been designed using Lino print and for a books arrival has been anticipated and who's author is prestigious is inspiring and fantastic to see. The process and image makes the book look and feel significant and have a sense of difference and refinement. It also links to the darker and fanciful nature of the book. In a video on Wormells website he explains his process and how it has changed from a purely traditional process to one that now incorporates new digital techniques. He still cuts and prints using the traditional methods and then edits the different prints together using photoshop. But one process that his video reminded me of and which I forgotten was Lino reduction. When you just use one block and you print the initial block cut and work back into it and re print. This allows for multiple colours for edition prints but also accurate lining up of the different layers when editing. He also explores digital brushes , one the sea in the cover this is evident as it would be hard to achieve the wispy splash with Lino as it is a bold material. I also an interested to see how he has utilised negative space.e.g. sky and trees, this helps to balance out the image and highlight the key points of focus.