Book Cover Design – James Bond (Pan Books)

Featuring surely one of the most famous literary creations, these two sets of Ian Fleming novels published by Pan Books are great examples of one style evolving into another. The illustrated covers are from 1960 to 1963, and were created by Sam Peffer, a commercial artist whose work also includes film poster and home video covers. I think these covers are holdovers from the pulp novel era of the 40’s and 50’s, and he was apparently paid about £40 for each one! Wow.

The later more minimal, harder edged, photographic work dates from 1963 to 1969, mostly featuring graphic design work by Raymond Hawkey (his editions lasted until 1965). He was already known for his groundbreaking cover design of the ‘The IPCRESS File’ novel. He insisted that the name ‘James Bond’ should be above the title and double the size. This was partly due to the fact that the novels were by this stage tied to a film franchise. Good examples of the different approaches are the two editions of Goldfinger.