The Landmark Thucydides Design

The stamp design for the first Castalia History book

We knew that designing the cover for THE LANDMARK THUCYDIDES was going to be a challenge. We wanted to launch the Castalia History series with a bang, so it was important to create something that not only lived up to the standard set by the Castalia Library series, but would be epic, memorable, and in high demand from book collectors over time.

Since Easton Press had followed our lead in acquiring rights to the other Landmark series, and Folio Society had put out their own goatskin Herodotus, we were determined to create a book that would significantly exceed the standards that our two bigger and more-established rivals were setting.

And then, there was the challenge of working with a very large book with an unusual trim size; a two-inch spine combined with an almost square shape. We also wanted it to live up to the magnificent appearance of the original Landmark hardcover edition.

So, there was a lot to consider, particularly given the fact that working in a single color necessarily made some of the various shadings that made the map on the original cover so visually impressive impossible to recreate in any way. But we knew we wanted to keep the map motif, and after some experimentation with different presentations, we also decided that utilizing a text box over a map would be desirable too.

But we did not like the vertical layout of the spine, which mimicked the text box over map approach of the cover, especially since we had so much real estate with which to work, so we started from scratch on that, and after further experimentation, wound up settling on two fairly obvious classic elements, the Spartan helmet and the Lacedaemonian shield. And two was all we needed thanks to our stylistic decision to stamp our History logo on all the books in the series.

Ignore the pink lines. Those are just for hub and fold references.

This is the mock-up of the final stamp design for the book, which the US bindery informs us is scheduled for binding the week of March 8th. There should be a few copies that will be available for sale, as we had some extras produced, and we will make them available to sale for existing History and Library subscribers once we find out how many we have.

This deluxe leather edition should make an extremely handsome companion to the matched set of Books 2 and 3, which are already being boxed for shipment. And we’re extremely pleased to have created an exterior that is worthy of the excellent interior content.