Michael Gillette Discusses The Bond Girl Book Covers

Casino Royale

As CommanderBond.net readers are no doubt aware, today marks the official republication of all 14 of Ian Fleming’s original James Bond novels with brand new cover art.

With the ‘2008 Centenary Edition’ label and released under the new Penguin 007 imprint, these new releases may quickly come to be known as the Bond girl covers thanks to the artwork created by designer Michael Gillette.

In a Mediabistro article, Gillette discussed how he came to create the covers for the latest set of Bond reprints.

He said: ‘I was approached by Jon Grey, a designer whom I knew socially from my time in London. The concept was devised by Penguin and Jon; they initially asked me to paint a girl for Casino Royale and see if I was keen to try the type too. I realized that this was a great opportunity to produce “the total look” as it were. I decided that within the limitations, that they should all be different colours to inject some instant variety.’

The Spy Who Loved Me cover

Gillette further recalls that he pitched three different Bond covers to the Ian Fleming estate before getting the go ahead. He then worked on the covers over a three-month period.

‘It was a very hectic period,’ he said, ‘and it seemed that I was always in catch up mode, finishing one and starting the next immediately. Ideally I’d have taken 4-5 days on each: a day to plan, a day painting the girl, one for the type and then another to hone it all.’ At the end of the process, he actually went back to repaint Casino Royale since he felt the finished set differed substantially enough from his initial designs for this particular cover.

The new Bond hardbacks sporting the Gillette covers are available now in the UK and can also be ordered online from Amazon.co.uk:

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