Ten covers, one grid

A cover system rather than a cover. The grid fixes four anchors: the BAEDE acronym set large at the head, the year and issue number in the top corners, the full name on a single line at the foot, and the association's logo bottom left.

What changes from issue to issue is the image: a single-colour line drawing traced from a piece of the Egyptian repertoire itself, over a hieroglyphic pattern printed almost at the edge of visibility, which gives texture without competing for attention.

Six versions were presented on that base first, and they are really three crossed decisions: which illustration leads, whether the acronym is serif or sans, and whether the numbering sits in the header or turns vertical down the right margin.

With the acronym at the head, the bulletin is recognisable from across a room and also as a thumbnail in a catalogue or a repository, which is where most of its readers now find it. The full name does not disappear: it moves to the foot, on one line, where it is read once you already know what you are holding.

And because the grid does not depend on the image, the collection holds together: change the drawing every issue and the covers still read as the same journal. It is the same reasoning behind the Djehuty Project dossiers.

Every version was delivered as vector artwork — illustration and background pattern on separate layers — so the association can set the following issues without rebuilding the cover each time.

The first six versions borrowed two images from the general repertoire: a winged Isis and Tutankhamun's mask. Both hold a cover. Neither says anything about this particular association.

The logo of the Spanish Association of Egyptology has always carried Herishef — the ram-headed god of Herakleopolis Magna, seated, the sun disc between his horns and the was sceptre in his hand. He was already on the cover: bottom left, 28.5 mm wide, while the board above drew something else entirely.

These four versions redraw Herishef at cover scale, in the same gold line and over the same hieroglyphic pattern. Mark and image stop pulling in different directions: the logo at the foot becomes the thumbnail of what fills the whole board.

They are the same crossed decisions as before, minus the first: the acronym in sans (Jost Black) or serif (Playfair Display), and the numbering in the top corners or turned vertically against the right margin.

A cover is not sent to print on its own. What goes is the whole sheet: back cover, spine and front cover in a single 359 × 242 mm document, with 3 mm of bleed on all four sides and the folds marked at 172 and 187 from the left trim edge.

The spine is set at 15 mm, which on 90 gsm offset comes to roughly 300–320 pages. It is the one measurement in the document that has to be confirmed with the printer before exporting, because it depends on the paper actually bought.

The back cover repeats the board in miniature — the same figure at 35.7 × 70 mm against the left margin — and closes with the ISSN. What ties the two faces together is the baseline: the ISSN on the back and the bulletin's name on the front sit at exactly the same height, so text, rule and logo close level on both.

The grid was not invented for the jacket: it is the same one that held the ten covers, four anchors fixed and everything else free. Scaled up to the whole sheet, this is what has to be respected.