Not So Noble Books would like to thank all the people who participated in the cover design competition for Marianna Cage’s book Marketing is Violence: A user guide. The book explores marketing’s role in society through the stratagems and tactics that its practitioners and theoreticians devise. It shows that the very premise of marketing is the consumer’s negative disposition towards advertising messages and marketing campaigns. How marketing tries to capture, cajole and manipulate the consumer is not in spite of but directly because of a deep-seated distrust, an avoidance and a rather-not attitude that is expressed in subversion, jamming and dissent. The language and practice of marketing avails itself of the terminology of military strategy, but what is usually seen as a war between companies who compete for a market share, is revealed for what it really is: a war against the social body, against consumers who, at all costs, must be captured and enslaved.

Marketing an anti-marketing message, finding a trick to engage otherwise disinterested people with the book’s message, was always going to be something of a contradictory exercise. The idea for this competition emerged then as something that could both help circulate and reinforce this message without taking anything away from anyone, but rather enriching a dimension of our culture and creating a platform whereby others can showcase their work.

We had seven judges for the competition. Each judge selected their top three designs. For Amit Rai, who was the voice on the panel of an otherwise-occupied Marianna Cage, yet who independently writes extensively on ecologies of resonance and affect, the third choice was Kayleigh Duxbury’s depiction of an atmosphere of blood. While many of the designs employed blood, and special mention of the superb early submission of Mark Bromley should be made here, Amit felt that, “the combination of the serial killer typeface and the cut out city in a cloud of blood” arrested his attention. Second for Amit was Nicola Roberto Rapicano’s disturbing image of a brain-eating woman, which resonated with the Hindi expression ‘dimak kaana’ “which entails the highest form of irritation: something that is a constant botheration ‘eats your head,’” an apt expression of the way advertising “nibbles away on our cortical apparatuses.” First however was the “subtly painful image” by Hans Diernberger. Again featuring a cityscape, for Amit this was the most worthy entry as “it produces a kind of headache if you look at it long: it produces the physiological effect of what marketing does at a macro and molecular level.” Given Amit’s proximity to the author, of all the judges his choices are perhaps the ones that best expressed the message of the book.

Leaving academia aside for a moment, we wanted to make sure we had a judge who came from the front line and was prepared to step into the no-man’s land we had created. Step forward the delectable Saskia Boersma, currently Brand Development Manager at Transport for London, whose extensive expertise in commercial and new business development for arts/heritage collections, establishing brands and brand extension opportunities, is all the more astonishing given her youth. Saskia focused on our primary marketplace, the killing fields of Amazon, and Helen Driver’s compelling design was almost her first choice given that it “cleverly reworked the idea of the marketing war by placing a lipstick amongst bullets” and that” fashion marketing is the most violent assault on the female consumer” but it did not work quite so well as “a thumbnail image as shown when I reduced it to the size it would be on Amazon.” Second was Colin Robson’s “excellent piece of typography, drawing on the 1960’s graphic design tradition which is also associated with the series to beat all series on advertising, Mad Men.” First for Saskia however was one of the earliest entries to the competition, Sean Cooper’s “bold, fun approach which will get readers to click on the book just to read the text.” According to Saskia our request for a killer image might have been taken too literally, and Cooper’s design whilst “ironic, does state the book’s contents and carries a severe anti-marketing stance without resorting to clichéd images of war or destruction.”

Helen Driver

Saskia's third choice

Colin Robson

Saskia's second choice

Sean Cooper

Saskia's first choice

Jasper Joffe, an artist known for his controversial painting and curatorial practice, was Not So Noble’s representative on the panel, and he also focused on the marketplace, going for the “most graphically clean work which would look good as a thumbnail on Amazon.” Third for Jasper was Luke Harby’s lucid design of a falling scalpel, second, Elie Esakoff’s play on the iconic, and first and foremost, another early entry, Mike Watson’s crisp and balanced design involving razors, a theme of the cut that was later repeated in a novel way by Gareth Richards’ entry. For Jasper, the three he shortlisted “were all simple but effective.” The standard of entries was excellent so it was difficult to choose. Other notable efforts involving cutting implements were, Andrea Panzeri’s stabbing Psycho-esque kitchen knife and James Akers’ stark representation of a combat knife. These excellent entries followed many in using the bold set of colours of red, white and black.

Luke Harby

Jasper's third choice

Elie Esakoff

Jasper's second choice

Mick Watson

Jasper's first choice

In contrast to Jasper’s choices and his untypically taciturn reflections were those made by Peter Fleming, Professor at CASS business school and author of the recent showstopper, Dead Man Working published by Zero Books. With the help of the ray of sunshine that is Amelia, the entries that caught Peter’s eye were dark and elemental. The Baconesque entry of Federico Gallo was of appeal, but perhaps not to the fairer sex. In third place, Fin O'Brine’s graphic depiction of a screaming baby with its decaying pixelated black mist left Peter practically speechless, whilst in second, was the equally sinister entry by Marie-Pascale Hardy which threatened to leave him with nightmares. This creeping, anonymous and featureless hand that gags and masks beauty, was indeed a superb effort. First however was Paul Michael Browne’s “spooky, eye catching, devastatingly good” design featuring a chunk of money ready to trip up the unwary.

Fin O'Brine

Peter's third choice

Marie-Pascale Hardy

Peter's second choice

Paul Michael Browne

Peter's first choice

Design professional, guru even, Richard Sedley, currently Director of Strategy at Foviance, has worked for over twenty years in the consumer experience field, although he has a background in fine art. Like Saskia, Richard fell for Helen Driver’s bullet lipstick image placing that in third place, whilst the second runner up was the deceptively simple design by Owen Lacey, an artist that prefers to use paper rather than a computer, and from whose design you can almost hear the screech and smell of the felt marker. This was similar in theme to Richard’s first choice, the cordoned off crime scene of Thomas Jeffery whose design “successfully meets the brief by providing a ‘killer’ visual cover,” in which “restrained colours and a balanced aesthetic is used to imply something extreme lies within. It warns us against opening but, like much great marketing, uses psychology to attract, after all who can resist opening what we’re told not to?” Interestingly, the views of the two judges most involved in marketing practice seemed to coincide here with Saskia Boersma also highly commending Jeffery’s “original” design.

Helen Driver

Richard's third choice

Owen Lacey

Richard's second choice

Thomas Jeffery

Richard's first choice

We were pleased and honoured that Arianna Bove could take time off teaching her Queen Mary students about the sins of social and political marketing to survey our ongoing criminal operation. She also plumbed for Paul Michael Browne’s “imaginative and inventive design for its pointing to the trap and the potential of tripping over,” although putting it in third place behind Helen Driver’s submission “which highlights how violence can be sexed up, and made seductive to enhance its armour-piercing deadliness.” First however was Rebecca Ripley’s for its “striking colours that stand out, and the slight smirk which reflects the ambiguity of the message of the book’s title.” Ripley’s subtle image included a target in the eye, and was one of many that used this device including the very clear covers of Hannah Mumby, James Brook and Kate Keara Pelen, and the entertaining one by Kresna Prasetyahutama.

Paul Michael Browne

Arianna's third choice

Helen Driver

Arianna's second choice

Rebecca Ripley

Arianna's first choice

Our final judge was none other than the venerable Patrick Hughes, godfather of paradox, an artist that has brought to light the reverse or contradictory side of things like no other and whose three-dimensional images that move in the eye continue to astound and delight young and old the world over. Patrick, no doubt expressing the sentiment of many on the panel, found the entries to be of superb quality making a decision difficult. Sean Cooper, already mentioned, stole third place, whilst Helen Driver, a name you should now also be more than familiar with, came in second. First however was that of Janusz Marciniak, an entry that was also commended by Saskia.

Many weapons featured in the submissions, indeed there was a small arsenal of guns, knives, hand grenades and bombs. Two designs in particular, those of Danie Croft and James Gaillard, used a barbed hook, surely a choice weapon for any marketing department worth its name. Yet Marciniak’s baseball bat, one positioned so clearly to express the percentile and the bottom line, somehow sums up the dull thudding pain of marketing encountered on the street. The sheer simplicity of this image made it a very strong contender and it had been mentioned by other judges albeit alongside the concern that it might just be too clever for purpose. Patrick Hughes also gave an honourable mention to Irene Pineda and Gareth Richards. Both Pineda’s shattering design and Richard’s cutting conception would make any bestselling crime fiction author very proud.

Sean Cooper

Patrick's third choice

Helen Driver

Patrick's second choice

Janusz Marciniak

Patrick's first choice

The quality of the book covers meant every judge had their own favourite. However there were some correspondences in the judges’ opinions, and four of our magnificent seven independently voted for Helen Driver’s exceptional submission. Ultimately we wanted a quality design that would resonate with the most people and express the book’s message in a striking way and for that reason the judges have unanimously decided to make her design the winner. Patrick Hughes pointed out that a similar theme albeit on a larger scale was used by Claes Oldenburg in a pop-art challenge to the Vietnam war at Yale. Whether intended or not, its repurposing for Marketing is Violence has an ironic charm.

Rather than extend our commiserations to the over 100 people that took the time to contribute some cracking original designs, alongside our gratitude we would like to announce our intention to find a way of producing an illustrated version of Marketing is Violence: A user guide, with all of these designs included, and perhaps a monthly rotating cover using those shortlisted entries, so as to have a living testimony of this wonderful little experiment in a wider project of wresting back some control over what we do with our lives.