Ross Macdonald Series
Author: Ross Macdonald
Designer: Joe Montgomery
Art Director: John Gall
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Typefaces: Futura, Headline One, Roadkill Heavy
Genre: Mystery/Noir
I'm a huge mystery/crime fiction/hardboiled/noir fan. I have all of Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer books with the previous series look, but after seeing Joe's covers for this series, I will probably end up buying them again. The images, cropping, layout and type fit these books so well. These covers really entice me to read the books again. I feel like there are new things to discover in these books after seeing these designs. I've been following Joe's work for the last four years or so. He does great work. Great job Joe, and thanks for contributing to FaceOut.
—Charles Brock
When I learned that I was going to get a chance to redesign some of Ross Macdonald’s ‘Lew Archer’ series titles, I was excited. I’m a big fan of the ‘Southern California noir’ mystery novel, and Macdonald is one of the finest in the genre.
The design brief was pretty open in terms of direction and John gave me plenty of creative freedom on this project (as he often does). The sole instruction was that the period in which each novel is set should translate to the cover design, so I attempted to create the feeling of a hard-boiled detective novel set in the California of the 1950s (at least for the initial titles of the series) while also conveying that they are contemporary reissues.
The first two titles I was assigned were “The Way Some People Die” and “The Ivory Grin.” These were written in the early 1950s and therefore are more ‘period’ in style than the four series covers that follow; “The Barbarous Coast” (1956), “The Doomsters” (1958), “The Instant Enemy” (1968) and “The Blue Hammer” (1976). As the series progressed, my goal was to have each cover get less period specific in the imagery used.
My decision to use dual images on the covers came about mostly from the fact that there is so much going on in the Macdonald novels that I felt a single image - while perhaps evocative and atmospheric - wouldn’t represent the fast pace and the interaction of characters and environment as well as the two-panel solution. I know this is an oft used (some say overused) design device but I felt in this case it really suited these particular novels. I feel that this juxtaposition works especially well on “The Barbarous Coast” cover.
The ‘distressed’ title fonts were deliberately used to convey the rough and violent contents of the books since the images are cool and static. The amorphous ‘slash’ that divides the images was another attempt at translating the pace and crudeness of the subject while creating a subtler way of splitting the imagery. Each title in the series was assigned a different color for the spine to make them easier to identify.
This was one of those projects that was fun to work on and left me happy with the results — owing mostly to the combination of great literature, a quality publisher, and a generous art director. It was a real pleasure.
05.26.09 // Ian Shimkoviak said:
Beautiful. Love the strong use of the color on the spine for setting the tone for the series. These remind me so much of Kidd's work on Elmore Leonard's covers.
I also enjoy the initial explorations. Especially the ones with the 3/4 design using strong silhouettes. Beautiful photography. I assume it's from a number of sources.
I also enjoy the initial explorations. Especially the ones with the 3/4 design using strong silhouettes. Beautiful photography. I assume it's from a number of sources.