Shakespeare × Ofili: Othello
Design by Sarah

Scope: book series design
Author: William Shakespeare
Artist: Chris Ofili
Publisher: David Zwirner Books 
Year: 2019
Format: 155×231mm
Pages: 176

︎︎︎ davidzwirnerbooks.com

Sarah was delighted to be asked by David Zwirner Books to create the overall design for their new book series entitled Seeing Shakespeare, bringing the world’s leading contemporary artists together with William Shakespeare. Each cover shows an illustration by the artist, so the spine and back cover of the book needed to tie the series together. The X is used as a graphic element to show the interaction between the artists and the plays, and it will be printed in a spot colour that resonates with the tone of each book.

The first book in the series is Othello, one of Shakespeare’s most contemporary and moving plays, with its emphasis on race, revenge, murder, and lost love.

In the twelve etchings that artist Chris Ofili has produced to illustrate this play, Othello is depicted with tears in his eyes, which flow below various scenes visualized in his forehead. Ofili asks us to see in Othello the great injustices that still plague the world today. These images add feeling to Shakespeare’s words, and together they form their own hybrid object – something between a book and a visual retelling of the tragedy.