Wordsmith Design

26/02/2026

I designed this book jacket for Bronwen Griff’s latest novel. I really enjoyed working with her. The book is inspired by the geography of Dungeness, but it’s interpreted into a fictional place called The Point. Bronwen sent me some of her photographs to use, and I really liked this combination of one of the beautiful worn stones at Pett Level with a rusty tank at Dungeness. The surface of the stone looks like a navigational map, and I love the view of the shoreline through the peephole in the tank – a spyhole of hope to navigate a safe future.
Appropriately, the book is going to be launched at Grounded Cafe in Lion Street, Rye on Thursday 26 March, 6-8pm.

14/03/2025

A poster design for a Freedom Seder – a Jewish Passover shared meal where symbolic foods are eaten to mark the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. The Seder plate has 6 dishes (a bit like a Thali plate). Traditionally, the foods are a boiled egg, a shank bone, horseradish, bitter herbs, a sweeter herb like Parsley for Spring, and a paste of nuts, apple and red wine to represent mortar.
https://time.com/5188494/passover-history-traditions/
I enjoyed working on this design.
I like the version with the foods, but I also like the minimalism of the plate on its own.
And I like the rich purple background as well as the deep blue.
It reminds me of a 1960s paperback book cover.

21/02/2025

This is one of my favourite – all be it one of the fiddliest – jobs to work on. 18 Hours Events put on wonderful street festivals like Bexhill After Dark and the "Streets of..." series which brings street performers and colour to humdrum towns at times of the year when we need brightness and a laugh.
5 towns across will have a day of surreal fun between March and May. Even if you don't live in the area, it's worth a visit to see how an ordinary high street can be transformed with good, clean, family fun!

19/12/2024