Redesigning Allingham

‘All this running about in the dark with daggers doesn’t seem to me healthy’

When Vintage Books announced that they were bringing Golden Age crime writer Margery Allingham back into print, we couldn’t have been more excited. Agatha Christie herself described Margery Allingham as ‘a shining light’ of the genre, and her brilliant detective Albert Campion has to be one of our favourites.

We asked CMYK designer Kris Potter about the new Margery Allingham covers:

“Creating a new series style for the Queen of Golden Age crime writing, Margery Allingham, was both a challenging and exciting prospect. The brief called for a bold and colourful new look, incorporating imagery from the books with a stylish sense of nostalgia. Designed and illustrated in house (Vintage Books), our first challenge was to create a strong branded look for the author name that would carry across the series.

Once we had settled on the author branding, we set about creating a loose grid for the series, which would keep the author name large at the top allowing the title to work around the illustrations. Each of the illustrations is inspired by visual elements within the book, whether it be an important clue, a pivotal scene or even the murder weapon itself. To keep the series bold and graphic we kept the illustration simple with just the right amount of nostalgia.”

We think they look great – especially all together as a set. What do you think?