"Serpent’s Tail is a consistently brave,
exciting and almost deliriously diverse publisher."
Will Self
Whilst down in London, a few of us from the ‘Illustration’ Course went
to visit ‘Serpents Tail’, an independent publisher that specializes in
publishing books that represent the kind of independent thinking that is so often
neglected by the mainstream. It is this philosophy towards representing unique
and interesting ideas that gained them a reputation as a publisher of brave and
exciting work.
When we arrived we met with Marketing Director Niamh Murray, who
talked us through the process of commissioning book cover designs. What came as
news to many of us was how many different people are involved in the cover
design. Many people were under the impression, as I was, that it was down to
the illustrator and the art director.
What we hadn’t realized was the number of marketing representatives
who needed to approve the cover before it could go ahead. For example there
would be a representative from ‘amazon’, who would asses a covers potential
based on how well it works as a thumbnail; similarly a representative on behalf
of supermarket chains would asses how well the cover would fit into their
store, views which may contrast with that a book shop representative.
I then, met with Art Director Peter Dyer for a portfolio viewing. As
most of my portfolio was made up of children’s illustration, there were a few
pieces he didn’t feel he could comment on, which lead me to realize something I
should have learned a while ago, which is that it is important to edit your
portfolio before a viewing depending on who you are going to see.
The piece that Peter was most interested in was the ‘Heroes’ piece I
developed for ‘Music’. He said that it is the kind of image he could see on a
book relating to pop music. He liked the notion of the ‘reductionist
portraits’; he said that this was an avenue worth exploring. However, he went
on to say that Noma Bar is currently the ‘go to guy’ for this kind of
illustration, and that if I wanted to pursue this ‘reductionist portrait’ area
further that I would need to work on a way of separating my work from Noma
Bar’s.
A big thanks to Niamh Murray and Peter Dyer for all their help and advice;
and for giving us all a rare insight into the world of publishing.
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