It was something of a dream job to be given the opportunity to design Bibek Debroy’s translation, in ten incredible volumes, of the great Indian epic. Penguin had already published the first edition with a bold graphic look so I had to do something radically different to distinguish the two.
R Sivapriya, who was at the time the translations and classics editor, would always send detailed, intelligent and thoughtful briefs along with the suggestion I do whatever I liked! This would be a gift in most situations, but was rather intimidating when you consider the iconic importance of the book I had to dress up – arguably the greatest story ever told.
I adore illustration and commission all styles of it for eloquent and effective book covers. But in this case, even though I considered it, I wondered if that was the right direction. Something told me to go photographic and modern.
The story seemed to speak to people today with the same urgency it must have had when it was first composed. The right photographs could make the Mahabharata appear both timeless and contemporary in its concerns, its design and its intent. The editor, the publisher (at that point it was Chiki Sarkar who headed publishing at Penguin) and the translator were all swiftly persuaded.
I did have to go begging for imagery as I did not have the time to read all ten volumes in their entirety. I knew the story from school, and from watching the Ravi Chopra version on the BBC.
Sivapriya suggested a number of elements and I filled in the rest. Then it was just a matter of finding a group of images that felt cohesive but were varied enough to suggest the vastness of the epic and the many stories it housed.
The photographs could not be marked by a specific era. It had to be as though the photographer had stepped out of time to shoot eternal images with no hint of ‘period’ about them. They had to be true for all time, from when the epic originated to now: fire, primordial swamp water, a hand holding a cowrie, a horse running drenched in sweat, a woman sleeping or perhaps dead, close-up of snake skin (given the surreal and magnificent snake sacrifice at the opening), a black dog (this pleased all of us – the god of death as the dog that follows Yudhishtra to the very end), a man with bloodshot eyes with his face painted impossibly dark, a red cloth hung up to dry or caught in a tree, and, finally, a jewel-coloured bird turning and staring behind it.
In our cover meetings we would normally show multiple options but I showed just these and they went down rather well. Editorial and sales both loved them. And so it happened.
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R Sivapriya, who was at the time the translations and classics editor, would always send detailed, intelligent and thoughtful briefs along with the suggestion I do whatever I liked! This would be a gift in most situations, but was rather intimidating when you consider the iconic importance of the book I had to dress up – arguably the greatest story ever told.
I adore illustration and commission all styles of it for eloquent and effective book covers. But in this case, even though I considered it, I wondered if that was the right direction. Something told me to go photographic and modern.
The story seemed to speak to people today with the same urgency it must have had when it was first composed. The right photographs could make the Mahabharata appear both timeless and contemporary in its concerns, its design and its intent. The editor, the publisher (at that point it was Chiki Sarkar who headed publishing at Penguin) and the translator were all swiftly persuaded.
I did have to go begging for imagery as I did not have the time to read all ten volumes in their entirety. I knew the story from school, and from watching the Ravi Chopra version on the BBC.
Sivapriya suggested a number of elements and I filled in the rest. Then it was just a matter of finding a group of images that felt cohesive but were varied enough to suggest the vastness of the epic and the many stories it housed.
The photographs could not be marked by a specific era. It had to be as though the photographer had stepped out of time to shoot eternal images with no hint of ‘period’ about them. They had to be true for all time, from when the epic originated to now: fire, primordial swamp water, a hand holding a cowrie, a horse running drenched in sweat, a woman sleeping or perhaps dead, close-up of snake skin (given the surreal and magnificent snake sacrifice at the opening), a black dog (this pleased all of us – the god of death as the dog that follows Yudhishtra to the very end), a man with bloodshot eyes with his face painted impossibly dark, a red cloth hung up to dry or caught in a tree, and, finally, a jewel-coloured bird turning and staring behind it.
In our cover meetings we would normally show multiple options but I showed just these and they went down rather well. Editorial and sales both loved them. And so it happened.
