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InspirationGraphic Design

Portuguese designer Senhor Tocas' striking approach to book cover design and illustration

“The cover of a book is the first thing a potential reader will see: it needs to attract immediate attention, stimulate interest, heighten the desire to learn more about the book´s content, and create a clear call to action,” says Lisbon-based designer, illustrator and art director Senhor Tocas. “Many book publishers have not yet realised that.” Tocas has realised it though, and it’s proven across his varied and bold approach to book cover design.

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Portrait illustration of a bearded man wearing glasses and a dark jacket against a grey background, rendered in a bold, stylised painterly technique with stark colour blocking

The approaches range from organic-looking painterly abstractions to using visceral and arresting photorealistic imagery, like that unflinching typographic stitches shot for the cover of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Tocas has worked with companies including Portuguese publishers Nexo Editorial, Clube do Autor and Oficina do Livro and US-based Akashic Books; and when he’s not designing he says he’s really into “graffiti, lights and blurry pictures,” and wolfing down Haagen-Dazs ice-cream. It’s an unusual resumé, sure, but a rather endearing one.

Book cover for Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace with barbed wire forming the word War above a beige bandage with Peace written on it
Book cover for Minha Querida Televisão by Tiago Torres da Silva, featuring vertical stripes in light blue, yellow, green, pink, red and blue with a black rectangular label containing white text
Bright pink book cover for Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, featuring interlocking male and female symbols in white outline
Fernando Pessoa's signature above three-dimensional typography reading "BOOK THOU SHALT DUE" casting a shadow on white background
Book cover with concentric black and white square outlines forming a maze pattern, with a white cross in the centre labelled "DEU'S
Book cover for Kenzaburo Oe's work featuring overlapping concentric circles and wavy lines in black and white with bold typography
Book cover for Thomas Rydahl's Eremitten featuring a white hand with black claw marks against a textured black background
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