Design Notes - Grace Given: The Mythology of Elden Ring

The Chester Beatty Library here in Dublin, Ireland – Tune & Fairweather’s hometown – is a museum, technically speaking. But to me it feels like wandering through a shrine. No better place for an Irish book publisher to immerse himself in the most dizzying feats of bookcraft imaginable.

So many transcendent objects under the same roof – intricately hand-painted Qu’rans, ancient Chinese snuff bottles carved out of jade stone, illuminated gospels from the Byzantine empire, 16th-century Albrecht Dürer prints, imperial dragon robes with waves and mythical beasts stitched in glittering silk. This treasure hoard was the personal collection of American-British mining magnate Chester Beatty, who bequeathed all of it to the Irish state upon his death in 1968.

Gift of a lifetime, indeed. The very opposite of a hoard.

The primary exhibit that greets you after climbing a brief flight of stairs is called Arts of the Book. As the name suggests, the floor introduces you to a cross-cultural view of some of the most exalted samples of printed matter civilisation has ever produced.

I have spent many slow afternoons wandering the Arts of the Book exhibit. It’s a joy to revisit periodically, as the museum’s curators frequently rotate items in and out. Spending time in the company of great art inspires equal parts humility and gratitude. There’s a natural urge to learn the language in which these literary art objects convey beauty and then see if we might be able to reproduce some aspect of that transcendence in the books that Tune & Fairweather creates.

When thinking about the physical form that Grace Given might take, my hope was that our collectors might feel some of the awe conveyed by these literary treasures of antiquity, which were often produced with great care to be gifted to temples or rulers thought to be divinely installed.

I’ve referred to our books, in the past, as “cathedrals in miniature” and I think Grace Given might fit that description more aptly than anything we’ve designed up until now. There’s a sense of grasping toward something so elevated that it floats just beyond one’s grasp (or even skill).

Allow me to take you through some of Grace Given’s design inspirations, drawn from the Chester Beatty Library’s collection as well as forays to the V&A Museum in London and numerous sites across Italy (T&F’s home away from home) for printer visits and sightseeing.

COVER

One common theme I’ve noticed in my observation of both artisanal books from previous centuries and classical architecture is that the leather cover of a book has long been stamped in a manner analogous to the etchings you see in the white marble facades of ancient buildings.

Take, for example, this arrangement of books on show in the Chester Beatty.

This one in particular (note the visages in the rectangular outer border, raised from the surface by stamping the negative space around each portrait).

The influence this work had on the composition of our demigod blind-stamping motif is apparent when you look at our cover artist Elliott Wells' final artwork.

And this carved marble reference from the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice, with its comparable hue and tactile appeal. You can't look at it without wanting to trace your hands over the forms.

And this ivory-carved cover of the Lorsch gospels displayed in the V&A Museum in London, produced circa 810 CE and modelled after the ivory carvings on a 6th-century Byzantine throne from Ravenna, Italy. I got so excited I texted this phone snap directly to Elliott, who was busy working on the cover art.

I’m attracted to the softness of the antique white. It feels weathered and warm. Also there’s something about the way faces have an exquisite creepiness to them, presumably because of the unblinking stares, corpses with eyes still gaping. Hopefully the portraits of the demigods on Grace Given’s cover convey this feeling of unsettling grandeur. The sense that they are carved in stone, immortalised, yet somehow keeping watch, even still. I think our artist Elliott Wells captured this quality beautifully.

Let's look at a few other design references that inspired our cover treatment:

The Hall of Faces from Game of Thrones (a pleasant George R.R. Martin connection, as Martin contributed to the initial world-building for Elden Ring).

This set of jaundiced-looking death masks I stumbled upon in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice. It took me a long moment to peel myself away and explore the rest of that exhibit. The faces themselves appeared fashioned out of smooth vellum. A more powerful token of 'memento mori', it seemed to me, than any skull desk ornament.

And, finally, this oddball smattering of heads peering out from this wall of the V&A Museum in London. Their unblinking eyes busy judging, sizing up the museum-goers wandering below.

THE SPINE

I have always loved the fabric spine labels that often feature in classical bookbinding. Because of the muted tones of the leather and vellum materials employed in such books’ outer coverings, this label adds a small stab of colour to draw the eye. Especially when the label has a bit of colour to it, the contrast is beautiful.

Here's a key research reference from a library within the Museo Correr in Venice (note the reddish-orange labels in the second image, which contributed inspiration for our limited-edition spine treatment).

Also, I quite liked the spine segmentation on these volumes I noticed through a shop window, which feels like a stack of ornate building blocks forming a stately column.

COLOUR PALETTE

There is a familiar colour palette that shows up in many of the illuminated panels originating from the Middle East that appear in the Chester Beatty’s collection. The pigments derived from the standard materials used in paint creation converged on several distinct shades.

Take for example the deep royal blue and mint-green hues in the following images and the corresponding raw materials used to make those particular shades of ink in centuries past. Forgive the quality of the photos taken on my phone without a flash in the museum's low light.

The endpapers of Grace Given's Collector's Edition positively luxuriate in this sort of mint green, which is also echoed in the colour of that edition's fabric spine label.

The idea is to use custom Pantone inks for these accent colours on the book's interior to ensure the optimal specificity of colour reproduction.

I never would have thought to incorporate a lavender shade but when you see it in artist Chris Lewis Lee's spot illustrations in the Introduction, it has such a tenderness to it.  

It's also a colour that is well represented in Elden Ring, due its otherworldly interstellar hue, which is probably why it brings to mind the cosmic aura surrounding Astel Naturalborn of the Void. Or just gazing dreamily up into the starry expanse above Nokron.

And observing the lavender in context in the illuminated folios in the Chester Beatty removed any doubt that it could offer a more understated complement to Grace Given's punchier blues and red-oranges.

While we're on the subject of colour, allow me to include one other photo reference I took during a visit to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, back in 2022. The glittering gold surround and sumptuous orangey-red in the dress of the kneeling woman in the bottom right kept me rooted to the floor in front of this piece, transfixed.

We associate age with dullness and rot but this painting and the colours used in its creation feel so utterly alive. The fabric of a dress not faded with time but luminescent, hooked up to some auxiliary power, inexhaustible.

To preserve the continuity of our favoured colours, we asked Shimhaq – who created the double-gatefold at the book’s centre and the corresponding cover glimpse that will be die-cut and tipped onto the front cover – to prioritise these colour values while creating his show-stopping panorama for the book’s centre.

Hopefully a worthy payoff to the narrow slice visible through the doorway portal on the book’s cover.

On that subject, here's a look at my doorway exploration and the precise reference that inspired the final shape language used on the cover. I loved the ordered symmetry on the sides and floor, but with the sloping arch above. Reminded me of our namesake serpents: the combination of Tune's curvy form and Fairweather's sharp corners.

Order and chaos, the eternal duality.

NUMERAL DECORATIONS

The Book of Kells has always been a foundational inspiration for not just the Tune & Fairweather logo but a crucial seed of our fascination with the book arts in general. Not to mention a proud signifier of our Irish identity.

Illumination work from the St Gall Gospel, created by Irish monks circa 750 CE and part of a similar tradition of so-called ‘insular books’, display the sort of characteristic elements that inspired our choice to ask Elliott, who worked on so many diverse aspects of Grace Given, to create a set of five dedicated numeral illustrations that we might render in gold ink.

Here's a folio from the St Gall Gospel:

And here's Elliott's contemporary twist on it for one of our five section breaks:

Elliott's notes on the initial draft of the first numeral:

If the book you're publishing dives deep into mythological subject matter such as Elden Ring's pantheon of demigods, why not derive inspiration from the form of a sacred manuscript, especially one from deep antiquity?

More of these numeral illustrations can be viewed in our brief capsule documentary highlighting Elliott’s involvement in the Grace Given project, if you’re interested in getting to know his artistic journey a bit better:

 

Here's a shot of Elliott (pictured at right) and myself following that video shoot, looking very happy to have finally met in person (or maybe Elliott's just stoked about the free limited-edition Demonic Archive I brought for him). Epic journeys require the ability to summon reliable co-op help. And Tune & Fairweather struck gold with the numerous collaborators that joined us for this project.

I’m immensely proud of the effort our designers and artists have invested into making Grace Given feel as singular as it does. The video game Elden Ring is a marvel of world-building in the grand mythic tradition – its director Hidetaka Miyazaki has established himself as my generation’s J.R.R. Tolkien – and uniquely warrants such a lavish homage.

Our author Geoff has written a manuscript that illuminates Miyazaki’s game and helps us more fully appreciate its genius. An illuminated manuscript, then, as well as an illuminating one.

I hope these reflections help you appreciate the deeply personal nature of Grace Given's design. I certainly view it as a culmination of my life’s artistic fascinations. If I’ve done my job right, perhaps it will outlive me and become a source of inspiration for others, just as the treasures of the Chester Beatty Library and other institutions like it have stretched my own creative imagination.

Beauty is necessary, and worthy of study.

- Jason Killingsworth

Founder & creative director

Tune & Fairweather

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Grace Given: The Mythology of Elden Ring is available for pre-order now, with the Limited and Benefactor Editions only available until August 10th, 2024.