Friday, November 20, 2015

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

This week I received a copy of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a new cover I designed for W. W. Norton and art directed by Debra Morton Hoyt. The final cover printed beautifully, thanks in large part to an amazingly detailed painting of Sor Juana from the 17th century (I love her eye staring down the viewer).


The original painting before cropping/recoloring:

Anonymous, 17th century / Portrait of Sor Juana de la Cruz / Museo de American, Madrid, Spain / Photo credit: Art Resource, NY

As a book designer, you go through so many comps in a year, it's easy to forget what you sent in for the first round. Sor Juana was a title I worked on almost a year ago, but I was reminded of the other designs I turned in after receiving the printed book. Luckily, this project had a fairly quick approval process and we moved forward with just slight revisions on the cover above. Here are a few other typographically driven comps I was pleased with (though I fully understand why the final was chosen):









Friday, May 1, 2015

The Price of Thirst

A newly released book about our global water crisis, published by University of Minnesota Press.

The idea was to position this title in the trade market as much as possible, while setting it apart from other covers about the water crisis which incorporate water imagery.

The first option I showed is a graphic approach. The water droplet is multiplied and creates an alarming visual:



The final cover is below. The image, by Amit Dave, is a haunting photo. My art director, Rachel Moeller, described the photograph as succinctly representing the "thirst" and "chaos" of the title. I didn't want the type to overwhelm the impact of the image, so it is clean and bold. The cover type is also incrementally scaled down as as visual metaphor for the diminishing water supply:



Cover photograph © Amit Dave/Reuters/Corbis