Thames and Hudson
Author | Art Direction | Book Design
Artistic director Tristan Manco is the author of numerous art and design books published by Thames and Hudson. A role which includes initial concepts, the writing of original text, picture research and art direction. For over 15 years he has built up a dynamic relationship with T&H’s in-house team in the collaboration of each title.
The first three books Stencil Graffiti (2002), Street Logos (2004) & Graffiti Brasil (2005) all had a similar small affordable paperback format – ideal for their target market of art students and street art fans.
Street Sketchbook (2007) and Street Sketchbook: Journeys (2010) were a first foray into large format hardcover books. The idea behind their design was to emulate the look and feel of real sketchbooks with a hard cover and rounded corners. Street Sketchbook won a British Book industry award for its jacket design, which also featured a spot varnish picking out the illustrations by Will Barras.
For a number of books it was a pleasure to commission artists to create bespoke typography for the covers; Street Sketchbook features the work of artists Andy Rementer & A.J.Purdy, Street Sketchbook: Journeys was hand drawn by Max Rippon and most recently the Make Your Mark typography is the work of artists 44Flavours. Each book has been printed in numerous language editions, which often have a different cover for each territory.
Following a number of books on street art topics, Manco began to focus on Contemporary art looking at the basics of art starting with the use of materials. Published in 2012, Raw + Material = Art – Found, Scavenged and Upcycled celebrated the work of a new generation of artists using low-cost and low-tech materials in their work.
As a follow up to the best-selling Raw + Materials + Art, Big Art Small Art published in 2014 looked at how artists use scale as a factor in their work illustrated by exploring both extremes of scale used to make us look at the world in new ways.