Oliver Barstow is an art director and editorial designer for the publishing industry. With over a decade of experience art directing, designing and managing editorial projects he has made a diverse range of high-end and award-winning publications, primarily in the fields of art, design and architecture. Originally from South Africa, now living in Europe, he has a depth of experience and interest in working with sensitive material, in particular that which is produced by the African diaspora.
He is currently the art director and designer of a monograph on the Guyanian artist Aubrey Williams for the Paul Mellon Centre for British Art. In 2023 he was the art director and designer for The True America: Photographs by Ernest Cole published by Aperture Foundation and in 2022 he was the art director and designer for the re-release of House of Bondage by Ernest Cole, also published by the Aperture Foundation. In 2020, he was the designer of Waiting for the Sibyl by William which received the best Dutch Book Design Award.
In South Africa he was co-founder and director of Fourthwall Books in 2010 (www.fourthwallbooks.com), an independent art book publisher with global distribution, with 45 books in its catalogue to date, a selection of which have won prestigious book awards.