Crash by J.G Ballard - Book Cover

Remember the "Crash by J.G. Ballard design competition" that the Uk Times newspaper were running in 2008? Well despite assurances (http://www.ballardian.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=71) nothing ever happened.

So I thought It would be interesting to publish my entry for the book design competition.

Here's my entry



I have since re-used some of my "meter" imagary artwork for the CD cover artwork on the latest album of the for the excellent Uk based DarkWave band "Pro-jekt". The meter was used on the CD itself. See http://www.pro-jekt.org/Reign%20of%20scars.htm for some examples of the cover-art. For more info on Pro-jekt checkout http://www.pro-jekt.org

Tribute to J.G.Ballard

I first discovered J.G.Ballard when I bought a battered second-hand copy of Hi-Rise from a bookshop many years ago. The book was unlike anything I had ever read, the understandable immortailty of the characters was a shock to the system, cognitive dissonance from the written page, this was new and exciting! This lead to me reading many other Ballard books over the years, the highlight probably being Crash, which I still don’t understand but enjoy unlocking the puzzle a little bit more everytime I read it. Just reading about the people that he influenced has been an additional bonus to me, this has opened opened new worlds of art, books and music. The Ballard community is a wonderful framework of sanity to ground myself against in an increasingly crazy world, one that he predicted through his books. Everytime I’m affronted by celebrity “news”, survellience and new consumer fetish cults I have a group of people to turn to who are equally bemused and angry. To new readers if you asked me what book to read first, I would say his autobiography, Miracles of Life (2008). From this gripping, warm and honest book you will get a true measure of the man that was J.G.Ballard.

The Times: J.G.Ballard Crash - Cover Design Competition Update

Last year I entered a design competition to to create a new book cover for the re-issued version of J.G.Ballard's Crash. The competition deadline last May came and went with no convincing updates from the Times. I emailed the Times of couple of times and put a few comments on the competition page but heard nothing. Snooping around the Harper Perennial website I located the email address of Siobhan Kenny, the Communications Director, next day I received the following response, the end is in sight? They have yet to update the website. Also announced this as at Ballardian

“Dear Mr Buxton

I do apologise for the lack of update on the competition to design a cover for a special edition of JG Ballard’s Crash. Unfortunately, changes to our publishing schedule resulted in our not being able to put the special edition into production in 2008 as planned. Instead therefore we hope to publish the new edition, complete wtih the winner’s artwork, as part of the series of events celebrating the 25th anniversary of 4th Estate in 2009. As soon as the details are finalised, we will of course inform the winner and publicise it more widely togethr with Times Online.

We are sorry for this delay but we hope that the greater prominence the book will receive by being part the 25th anniversary of 4th Estate will give the winner and the book more public profile.

Best wishes
Siobhan Kenny, Communications Director

Sculptures transferred to TheArtBay Gallery

This weeked I visited the gallery that sell my abstract and sculpture work. TheArtBay based in Fenton carry a very distinctive and alternative range of art from a diverse selection of artists.

theartbay gallery
Tel: 01782 844222
Mobile: 07809 505244

Email: sales@theartbay.co.uk

All of the pieces below are available for sale now, contact the gallery for more details


Trinity Tubes (2007)


Wound (2008)


Spine Breed (2008)


Obedience (2007) (after Milgram)

Momento Flesh (2008)


Corpus #1 (2008)


Beast (2008)


Drainage Point(2008)

Design a cover for J.G.Ballards's Crash Novel

The Times (UK) have recently announced a competition to design a cover for the famous J.G.Ballard novel "Crash". This is a dream come true for artist fans of Ballards work. I am really looking forward to the challenge of producing some work to a quite specific brief i.e:

All designs must be 197mm x 129mm in size, and include the book title, the author's name, the Harper Perennial logo and this quote, ‘A work of very powerful originality. Ballard is amongst our finest writers of fiction’ Anthony Burgess

Crash deals with many subjects including our unhealthy relationship with and the fetishisation of technology and so I'm thinking of using some of the OFM sculptures in my cover design.


Link