ABOUT

Virgin Books first started in 1979 as a rock music publisher by Richard Branson. Widely known for innovative, high-quality, commercial non-fiction imprint, Virgin books publishes across a broad range of subjects from music, humour and biography to business, lifestyle, TV tie-ins and reference. Authors Include Sir Richard Branson, Jay-Z, David Essex, Fatima Whitbread, Spike Milligan and Stephen Sondheim.

Since those early days, Virgin have come a long way and now operate as a joint venture with the largest publishing house in the world, the Random House Group.

We were approached by Virgin Books who were publishing a forthcoming biography of the band James. Along with James’ manager Peter Rudge, they wanted an unusual design for the book cover.

We commissioned a photographer and art directed the photoshoot which resulted in a vintage brown sofa with one red cushion and two antimacassars. The idea behind the cover was to provide an image to reflect one of James’ most recognised hits, hence the sofa matched the song title ‘Sit down’. To add a dose of eccentricity to the overall look is small corner group shot of the entire James band wearing outrageous clothing, eating bananas, first seen on the 1993 album titled ‘Laid”.