To title the book atop the black-and-white image, Pentagram chose the typeface Austin–which itself was first designed for the British style magazine Harpers & Queen as a modernist spin on a popular typeface from the 1800s. By turning off the lights and making the imagery more ambiguous, Hyland wanted to make room for the reader’s own escapism–and provide a book that a young woman, the target demographic, wouldn’t feel embarrassed to grab at a supermarket or read on a train.
Pentagram went so far as to create a design system that blurred stock photography through digital filters, essentially reaffirming the old adage that the difference between pornography and art is just better lighting. “It’s slightly more dangerous, as it were,” says Hyland, pointing out that the vague figures are “more suggestive than literal.” The firm instead chose black-and-white photography, and zoomed into the subjects with little respect to the human physique, almost turning the bodies into abstraction. Its most aggressive visual work was on Mills & Boon’s newest, sex-forward sub-brand called Dare.įor Dare, Pentagram abandoned the typical full-color cover, in which a hot guy and a hot girl would either be enraptured or in some very buttoned-up state of sexual repression. The even larger job, though, was that Pentagram helped rebrand Mills & Boon’s entire branching line of romantic books–which range in subgenres from Supernatural to Western Romance to something called Cosmos Red Hot Reads. The only nod to romance is subliminal–a heart was used to shape the ampersand’s curves. A publisher using the same cover art on more than one book is a pet peeve of mine.Pentagram made Mills & Boon an updated logo, presenting the brand in a modernist sans serif wordmark.Trends in Harlequin Historical Cover Designs.Trends in Mills & Boon Historical Cover Designs.pick by series: first (1983-1988) or second (1989-1993), orĪll other Harlequin Historicals grouped by theme:.Harlequin Regency Romances, in order of publication Secondary, or subscription HHs, sometimes refered to as "mini-series" HHs