Fitzcarraldo Editions book series

Fitzcarraldo Editions is a British independent publisher specializing in contemporary fiction and long-form essays. Among other authors, they publish the work of Nobel Prize in Literature laureates Svetlana Alexievich, Olga Tokarczuk, and Annie Ernaux.

The series uses, printed in International Klein Blue (IKB), is set throughout in a custom serif typeface named Fitzcarraldo. Its designer, Ray O’Meara, created a typeface “drawing inspiration from Ulysses-era Bodley Head editions of the 1940s and 50s”, as quoted by Ravi Ghosh in an article for Elephant.

For the design of the books temselves, O’Meara was influenced by the catalogs of European publishers like Éditions Gallimard, in France, that have similarly minimalist looks, giving a sense of unity between the imprint’s titles. The covers come in two color coded versions: fiction covers are blue, non-fiction are (pastel) white.

In 2020, The Face called Fitzcarraldo’s editions “the most beautiful books on the shelf.”