'101 things Birmingham gave the world' book cover design

Surely was commissioned by Paradise Circus to illustrate and design their book cover for 101 things Birmingham gave the world. 

In some ways, quite a challenge... how to communicate the range of 'things' without going overboard or losing the sense of humour that runs through the book? Whilst exploring initial ideas, we noticed that one of the 'things' Birmingham gave the world was the cardboard box which gave the perfect way to contain the 'things'.  

The digital montage utilises royalty free stock imagery, which was intricately cut out and layered to create the box, full to overflowing, with things from the '101' list. A few typographic variations were explored, before the finished version was chosen (others having failed the 'mother-in-law' test... a new one on us!). The '101' was added to the side of the box as was the Paradise Circus logo.

As work on the cover was nearing completion it was revealed that Stewart Lee would be writing the foreword which was a nice addition to an already interesting brief.

You can still buy it here

"...a joy to work with. From our admittedly confused and vague brief Surely came up with a number of ideas, ran them past us, and kept us informed and in charge. Surely kept us up to date with progress and was happy to take on board ideas, tweaks and so on, and generally dealt with our panic extremely well. It goes without saying that we recommend Surely highly and were over the moon with the finished product"

Craig Hamilton