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Wednesday Cover Story: A topsy-turvy idea…

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

We’ve recently reprinted Paul Magrs novel To the Devil – a Diva! with a brand new cover.

I saw earlier today that the author had highlighted this news on his own website here (and was happy to see he thinks the new cover is ‘excellent’). But as I scrolled down the page my eye was drawn to another cover featured there – that of 666 Charing Cross Road.  Aside from the fact that our offices are just up the street from Charing Cross Road (so my curiousity was peeked) I found the upside-down-mirror concept of the cover design (where an upside-down New York skyline mirrors the London skyline) very effective.

However, I found myself wishing they’d played with this idea a bit more and written the author name Paul Magrs upside-down – blurring the notion of a definite TOP and BOTTOM of the book.

Once you opened the book to read it, you would obviously figure out the right way up. Unless of course one took it a step further and played with the text inside the book, printing each alternating chapter upside down, so you’d have to swivel the book round every time you started a new chapter. But methinks I’m getting a little carried away now, and that would be taking things a little too far…

Chiara Priorelli, Publicity & Online Marketing Manager


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