Bonnier Books UK imprint John Blake unveils new look

Following a stellar few years since joining Bonnier Books UK, John Blake is looking to the future with a new identity and logo designed by Tom Leach, creative director at Evoke.

The first John Blake title to bear the new logo is The Stone Age: Sixty Years of The Rolling Stones by music journalist Lesley Ann Jones.

John Blake is a commercial non-fiction imprint with a 30-year history that publishes a mix of extraordinary real-life stories, true crime, biographies, sport, music, alternative histories and gift and humour. It’s the no.1 true crime publisher in the UK, with titles including the Sunday Times number one bestselling series The Real Peaky Blinders by Carl Chinn, which has sold over 500,000 copies across all editions, and the million-copy internationally bestselling Talking with Serial Killers series by criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee.

The imprint was acquired by Bonnier Books UK in 2016 and is now managed by Publisher, Matt Phillips and Editorial Director, Ciara Lloyd.

Editorial Director, Ciara Lloyd said, “Tom has done an incredible job on our new logo, celebrating the bold and commercial mass-market publishing that we at JB have always done, but freshening it up for a modern audience. Our motto is ‘Books as real as you are’ and I feel our new logo ties in perfectly with our new brand identity, and the wider values of Bonnier Books UK. I’m really proud of the strides we’ve made in the past few years, both with our astute IP publishing and building our reputation for bestsellers, and I can’t wait to see the new logo on the spines of all our incredible books.”.

Publisher, Matt Phillips said: “JB has been going from strength to strength since joining and is a hugely valued part of the Bonnier Books UK stable. It has been an absolute pleasure to watch it develop under Ciara’s leadership as a touch point for stories that break news and that really matter to hundreds of thousands of readers across the country. We have an incredibly exciting range of books for this year and next and this rebrand comes at a perfect time as the list looks forward and moves to the next stage of its growth.”

Highlights for 2022 include Diana: Remembering the Princess, a book celebrating the life and legacy of the Princess of Wales by her ex-protection officer, Ken Wharfe and her authorized biographer, Ros Coward; a landmark tie-in title with The National Archives, History of Treason, to coincide with an exhibition this November; Shallow Graves, the memoir of renowned forensic scientist Ray Fysh; and a raft of incredible gift and humour titles for the Autumn, including a volume of the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards.