Mac & His Problem by Enrique Vila-Matas
Source: www.penguin.co.uk License: All Rights Reserved.
A bunch of ampersands for the cover of Mac & His Problem from “one of the most prominent writers in the Spanish language” [Wikipedia], Enrique Vila–Matas. Fragmented coloured blocks loosely joined nearly cover the cover, and most of the blocks feature a hand-drawn ampersand. Although hand-drawn, most or all of them seem to follow a pre-made font. Using the numbered key (image below):
2 and 9 are Palatino Italic
3 is Baskerville or a follower
4 is a Caslon, perhaps Adobe Caslon Italic
5 is Palatino Regular
6 is Trajan
7 is Shelley Script
8 I didn’t manage to identify (and on some covers, block 1 also has the same design ampersand).
Author’s name (top) and book title (bottom) are set in Metro No. 2, with the mystery ampersand.
License: All Rights Reserved.
Source: vintagebooksdesign.tumblr.com License: All Rights Reserved.
Source: vintagebooksdesign.tumblr.com License: All Rights Reserved.
1 Comment on “Mac & His Problem by Enrique Vila-Matas”
Hi David, nice one! I think you are spot on with Adobe Caslon. As for the mystery ampersand (#8), I think this started out with Joanna Italic, stretched. On his website, cover designer Matt Broughton shared some process materials. In the pencil sketch, the ampersand in the bottom right corner stays closer to Joanna Italic’s original form.