Book Designer

Born in 1976, Sunandini Banerjee has been working since 2000 for Seagull Books. She completed her Masters in English Literature from Jadavpur University, Calcutta, and joined Seagull Books as an editorial assistant. Along with proofreading and copyediting, she began to explore page layouts and typesetting and then, gradually, cover designs for Seagull Books titles. In 2002, she designed her first Seagull Books catalogue, a showcase of not only Seagull’s titles but also an ambassador of its belief in great design and high-quality production. Sunandini Banerjee is now both Senior Editor and Senior Graphic Designer, and designs all of Seagull’s books, book covers and catalogues. Her associative cover designs, which are both typographically and visually thoughtful collages, are much-praised. She digitally mixes compiled materials for highly detailed newly invented motifs.
 
Sunandini Banerjee has illustrated Thomas Bernhard’s Victor Halfwit: A Winter’s Tale (Seagull Books, 2010), done a suite of 12 collages for Ivan Vladislavic’s The Loss Library (Seagull Books, 2011) and a suite of 13 for Diane Meur’s In Dreams. Her most recent work has been an illustrated edition of a new translation of Isha Upanishad (Seagull Books, 2013).

Sunandini Banerjee’s digital collages are inspired by a diverse range of titles published by Seagull Books over the last few years. Created entirely on the computer, combining photographs, paintings, sculpture, woodcuts, line-drawings, magazine clippings, and text, these collages are both an interpretation of and a response to a wide range of texts, ranging from the poetical to the philosophical to the political. Her work has been exhibited in various Indian cities, as well as in Cologne, Shanghai and Sri Lanka. Banerjee also teaches book design at the Seagull School of Publishing. She works in Calcutta.