‘I simplify complex ideas, and lean on minimalism to flesh them out’: Book designer Bena Sareen

Bena Sareen won the 11th Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize for designing the cover for Amitava Kumar’s novel, My Beloved Life, published by Aleph Book Company. This is her second win, after a previous award in the inaugural edition for her cover design of Talking of Justice by Leila Seth, also published by Aleph Book Company.

Sareen is among, if not the senior-most, book designer in the Indian publishing industry. She has been designing books for 26 years and was the first art director at Penguin India. She set up the design department at Penguin India in 1999, and later at Aleph Book Company, New in 2011. In addition to book cover designing, she was the Publisher for the art books imprint, Penguin Studio, and also the Backlist Publisher at Penguin India.

In a conversation with Scroll, Sareen spoke about her visual language, the iconic book covers of The Greatest Stories series, the invasion of AI in book designing, and more.

Excerpts from the conversation:

How would you define your visual language? Is it constantly changing or is it always at the core of every book you design?
I would like to believe that over the years my design language has evolved to be eclectic. At the core lies a natural instinct combined with a lifetime of...

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