003: A Suitable Designer: Ahlawat Gunjan on the Intricacy of Designing a Book Cover, the Informed Application of Design and His Love for Publishing
⌛ 5 MINUTES
Book designer, image-maker and a struggling pianist, Ahlawat Gunjan is a multifaceted individual and currently at the helm of Penguin Random House, India as the Creative Head. Initially an engineer in the making, a young Ahlawat soon realised his love for working in publishing — and hasn’t looked back since.
Finding His Way Home: The Making of a Book Designer
Ahlawat found the right channel for his artistic abilities with the help of a letter to the prestigious National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, requesting a prospectus. After what he calls “an eye-opening experience” learning about the world of design and recognising his flair for visuals, he decided to pursue graphic design. A four-year undergraduate course and a few internships later, he accidentally found himself working at Dorling Kindersley (well-known publishers of gorgeously illustrated books), then at Penguin Books India and and finally pursuing his master’s degree from the Glasgow School of Art. Ahlawat went on to work at Lars Muller and Faber & Faber, London, before returning to Penguin, which he calls a homecoming.
Hard at Work: Responsibilities as a Creative Head
Ahlawat begins his role after receiving cover briefs from the commissioning editors along with important highlights to assist in the cover design process. Depending upon the different skills and strengths of his team members, he then allocates the cover briefs to the designers. The result of this process is a set of 4-5 cover design options, created over a month of hard work and discussed in detail at ‘jacket meetings’, where sales, marketing and editorial departments offer their critical feedback. He believes that one cannot design in isolation, as it's a collaborative and iterative process.
Ahlawat shares that at times, he likes to take the Design team for bookstore visits and quietly place cover designs around to observe how the customers interact with them. It’s his way of engaging in field tests and gathering feedback from the people the books are ultimately meant for. He says that there are certain briefs he keeps for himself because along with his diverse role as Creative Head, he loves the opportunity to engage in some hands-on work.
In Moong Over Microchip by Venkat Iyer, Ahlawat has cleverly married the digital aspect of the author’s life (portrayed through a keyboard) to the more organic aspect of his life (as shown by the paddy fields) in a manner which makes it both unmissable and a memorable visual in its own right.
Mastering the Ingredients to an Ever-changing Recipe
While designing a cover, Ahlawat believes in following two fundamental consistencies amongst all his projects – strength and clarity. Strength defines how evocative and impactful the imagery is and clarity expresses how well it’s able to communicate the message to the readers. Readers come from different backgrounds and it’s important for each reader to be able to mingle with the story, leaving those differences behind. Ahlawat says there is no particular recipe for building a good cover. The ingredients (majorly typography and imagery) going into each design differ highly depending on the genre of the book – the spirit of a cookbook is different from that of a children’s book and the personality of a business book will be different from that of poetry. As a trained designer, he strongly believes in the act of designing and not decorating. The fine line of distinction between design and decoration is that design consists of making intelligent and informed choices about each aspect, from fonts to textures, while decoration is simply “using a fancy font because it looks fancy”.
Materiality plays a big role in Ahlawat’s designs, and Vandana Singh Lal’s novel “So All Is Peace” serves as a fine example. After reading the manuscript, he got laser-cut wooden letters, created a pool of cement at home and buried the letters in it to recreate a stunning visual from the story for the cover.
Ahlawat Gunjan: An Image-maker
Ahlawat believes in the soulful, iterative process of creating an image from scratch for almost all of his book covers. It is immensely satisfying for his creative persona to get his head, heart and hands in a sort of creative alignment. His curiosity and the manner in which he actively absorbs his surroundings give him the edge to constantly create meaningful and iconic designs.
“I’m a designer who believes in materiality, and naturally I love working with materials. Inspiration can come from anywhere and if you’re not informed, you won’t be able to play with the materials around you and ultimately will not be able to create unusual visuals.”
Education from a good design school, sensitivity towards everything around him and his knowledge of art history, space and structure all come together to create the image-maker.
Judging a Book by Its Cover
When asked about his opinions on the role covers play in sales, Ahlawat passionately describes the thought process of an average reader browsing in a bookstore —
“There are shelves upon shelves of books in front of you and there is little to no chance that you will pick up each book to find out more about it. It’s the cover that makes the initial impact. Amidst that sea of books, there will be one that will stand out with such great strength and speak to you with such clarity that you can’t help but pick up the book, read the blurb at the back and maybe a few initial pages. By this point, half the decision-making has already happened in the buyer’s head. Readers are so fascinated by every step in the journey of reading a book, that even the finest details like how the book feels in your hands and how successful the cover is in transporting you to the world contained in the pages play a huge role.”
What about the impact of the increasing popularity of e-readers and mobile reading apps? Ahlawat confidently answers that after their initial introduction around 2009, it only took the world a few years to realise the importance of printed books and brick-and-mortar stores bounced back deftly. In terms of cover design, an e-book does entail small changes in the proportions of the typography but is ultimately not that different.
Talking about what it takes to design covers for books, Ahlawat says, “the first and foremost requisite for entering this field is a passion for reading.” Authors hand over their years of hard work to the designers and it’s the designers’ responsibility to feel the story, read the underlying messages between sentences and bring it all together to create a cover that’s reflective of the author’s vision. They need to play with different elements of design to create a cover that gives a glimpse into the story.
At the same time, however, designers need to be conscious about the waste they’re creating in this process through the use of post-press effects that use chemical-based inks. “It’s our job to be mindful about these things during the design process.”
As we reach the end of the episode, we sign off with some rapid 🔥 questions. Get the popcorn and start reading!
