Wrapping words into the shape of brains, tyre tracks and portraits, David Talavera's design style borrows heavily from carmina figurata, but meets the poetic style with a bright, hard-edged modernism. He won over our judges with his poster evoking the zeitgeist of National Rail, and now we're going to interview him.

Could you tell us a bit about your horror film festival posters? Are there any particular retro horror poster designs that inspired you?

The Horror posters were created as a series of four to promote a fictional horror film festival, based in Nottingham castle. The genre they aim to reflect is that of psychological horror, and particularly the early collaborative work of Alfred Hitchcock and Saul Bass.

A lot of the posters that gave me inspiration, such as Vertigo or Psycho, used only two or three bold colours, with the imagery usually made up of basic geometric forms. A lot of other horror posters which I looked at from the early 1950s through to the 1970s shared the same characteristics, good examples were Bronislaw Zelek's The Birds and Dario Argento's Profondo Rosso.

Congratulations on winning the brief for the Orion jacket design. Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies and Bull Riders looks like an interesting book, though the title creates a confusingly homo-erotic mental image. Tell us about the jacket designing process.

Haha, never really thought of it like that, although it is a very unusual title I agree, and there is a lot of machismo in the book! I think it's supposed to represent some of the slang terms used in the professional bull riders' rodeo tour. A 'buckle bunny' is what they call a bull, and a 'twinkie' is a type of cream filled spongecake.

The process for the book jacket design was an exciting one. It came about through Orion publishers, who asked me to come up with a new paperback version of an existing hardback book cover. Through a series of design meetings and discussions, we arrived on a final design showing the silhouette of a rider on a bull.

Now that they had a look they wanted for the book and one that suited the target audience, it was a case of adding the spine and back cover and modifying the design template until Orion were happy. The next step was getting the approval of the book's author Josh Peter, which I was given.

The whole process took around three months from start to finish, and was my first experience of working closely with clients to a tight deadline. It was published in late 2006.

How would you argue against the statement 'Don't judge a book by it's cover'?

I think that is quite a useless statement really, because pretty much everything is judged by appearance these days. If you see a book on the shelf, it's the cover that draws you in - that or the title/author... which is on the cover! The same reasoning goes for design too; a striking image or beautifully laid out piece of type is what we see initially, before we look further into the context or subject matter.

It’s only when we get to know someone's work and what their design ethic is about that we can properly judge them, until then an affinity for someone's work or the person themselves is based on appearance.

Looking at LA Woman, which incorporates the lyrics from the titular Doors song - do you find it easier to shape a bulk of text, rather than work with a short title or catch-phrase?

I think I probably do prefer to work with a bulk of text rather than a single title. In this particular instance the exhibition was based around the lyrics of the song, so it was all about how they related to the visual imagery. I wanted the words to resemble tyre marks from the car and chose to bunch the words closely together to resemble treads.

I find with a large amount of text there is a lot more flexibility and room for improvisation. Much of the work I do employs type, but instead of a title being a mere afterthought I prefer to incorporate the words into the image as the main focal point. Although sometimes if I feel it is appropriate I will use a single title or word - whatever suits the design really.

You've done quite a few musical projects - what single song would best represent your artistic style?

That’s a tricky one! Well I suppose my work is quite bold and eye-catching, and I agree that it is heavily music-orientated, so maybe Rock & Roll by Led Zeppelin!

You can pick up the Slow poster with David's artwork completely free at these outlets now. If you miss it, you'll soon be able to purchase it from here (or, if you can't wait - email us).

You can see more of David's work at his website - www.davidtalavera.com