AIGA PDA

Happy to hear the following covers made it into the AIGA Philadelphia Design Awards. Work is from the past two years. Looking forward to the show in June!

50/50

If you appreciate excellent book design, please consider signing this petition to save AIGA's 50 books/50 covers:

http://save5050.com/petition.html

To see 2009's inspiring work, check out this link:

http://designarchives.aiga.org/#/entries/%2Bcollections%3A%2250%20Books%2F50%20Covers%20of%202009%22/_/grid/relevance/asc/0/48/90

Dead Neon

It's always refreshing to get a title that breaks the mold of the typical genre of books I get. Dead Neon is a subject matter I rarely work on, science fiction writing. I was hooked with the first story and read the entire manuscript before sketching. The first concept that came to mind was a gas mask since many of the stories have an apocalyptic bent. The idea was to create the image out of Las Vegas icons. So I set out about the tedious task using poker chips, dice, playing cards and of course, the iconic Las Vegas sign.






Once I had this comp done I hit a wall. I had no idea where to go next since this one felt so spot on, but of course, 3 comps is what you have to submit so I wracked my brain searching for more concepts. Las Vegas burning, Las Vegas sinking, Las Vegas desolate and deserted...check:






I used a mix of vintage imagery, clip art and stock photos to create the collages used on these two comps. I had a fun time working up these pieces of art for the comps. Kind of an industrial/human merging perspective of the future:






The final design is shown below. Glad to see my first idea was my best. Thanks to Kathleen Szawiola, my art director at University of Nevada Press, who delivered my fastest approval ever in a mere 8 hours (including author approval).

If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This

Many times I receive a manuscript, read it through and just hope I can do the writing justice with a cover design. This is the case with Robin Black's beautiful If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This. As with all short story collections, the difficulty lies in finding imagery that can represent the tone of all the stories.

From the Random House website:

"Brilliant, hopeful, and fearlessly honest, If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This illuminates the truths of human relationships, truths we come to recognize in these characters and in ourselves."

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The title story is where I originally began. It centers on a woman who is dying of cancer addressing her neighbour, who wants to erect a fence that blocks her driveway. The fence became a visual icon for me in the first round of comps:





The second set of imagery I used was paint strokes, inspired by the story, Immortalizing John Parker. The main character, who is a painter, reflects on her own life while painting a portrait of an aging Alzheimer's patient.




The painterly feel of the comps was what I was asked to concentrate on and from there a series of painted comps was submitted for review. First warm, then cooler colors...






Towards the end, the focus shifted back to an earlier comp with the 9 paint strokes. From there, we adjusted the background color and the final jacket was complete. Seen below is the front cover, spine and back:



A small aside: Initially I used 9 paint strokes because the manuscript I received over a year ago had 9 stories. It wasn't until I showed up for Robin's book reading at Bryn Mawr College that I realized the book had 10 stories.

Connected

hello there, apologies for the gap in posting.

First post up for the summer is Connected. This book came to me from Julianna Lee at Little Brown. A interesting project since I already owned the hardcover, bought in part because of how much I liked the hc jacket (designed by Julianna). The direction was to take an entirely different approach than the jacket....maybe something closer to this cover I did many years ago.

Here is a quick summary from Amazon:

Scientists Christakis and Fowler present compelling evidence for our profound influence on one another's tastes, health, wealth, happiness, beliefs, even weight, as they explain how social networks form and how they operate.

My first idea was to form the letters out of groups of people. I spent an inordinate amount of time placing these silhouettes. This was a favorite concept on my part, but was deemed too difficult to read because of the title not reading as one word.


On this comp, I graphically connected the letters and layered them over a crowd of people:


The final cover is a literal interpretation, but bold & iconic. Small figures with an overlying grid showing the multiple connections. Printed a bright orange with the gray printing metallic. A fun project to work on...

50/50

Congrats to all the winners, a very beautiful selection this year:

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/5050-recent

Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto

About a year ago I began a cover project for Graywolf Press called Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto. I was immediately struck by the title. The book has just printed (final cover at the end). Here is a summary of the novel from Amazon:

In a remote, piney wood in Finland stands a convalescent hospital called Suvanto, a curving concrete example of austere Scandinavian design. It is the 1920s, and the patients, all women, seek relief from a variety of ailments real and imagined. On the lower floors are the stoic local Finnish women; on the upper floors are foreign women of privilege—the “up-patients.” They are tended to by the head nurse, Sunny Taylor, an American who has escaped an ill-starred life only to retreat behind a mask of crisp professionalism.

Summer turns to fall, and fall to a long, dark winter. The patients begin to hear rumors about the changes being implemented at Suvanto by an American obstetrician, Dr. Peter Weber, who is experimenting with a new surgical stitch. Their familiar routine threatened, the women are not happy (they were not happy before), and the story’s escalating menace builds to a terrifying conclusion.

At the beginning of the project my art director at Graywolf gave me several good bits of info to lead me along in my design process: The hospital building and it’s nod to the gothic, austere beauty, seductive darkness, the body and its meat-like reality and the feel of a greek tragedy. All strong elements to work with.

The main element that stood out to me was the body and the surgical stitch used in the story. These factor strongly into my design directions. I also was struck by the title...sounded like writing from a formal invitation. I make reference to this with the panel holding the type. The bright red line is meant to evoke stitching lines:


Stitches & the human body (with it's meat-like quality):


The body sectioned using a woman from the 1920s era and the sewing stitch again:


The nurse portrayed in an austere illustration style:


Revisions came back from this first round and I reworked the comps a bit. On this revised comp a small splattering of blood was added to the "invitation" as well as a new image of the hospital.


A (menacing) hospital bed, with the stitched type on top:


It became clear that the stitched type was liked, but I wasn't happy with the computer generated look on the older comps. I redrew all the stitching by hand for the next round to give it a more organic feel:


The author had an image in mind throughout the process that I hadn't used early on, but was brought back into the later rounds of revisions. The photograph by Elina Brotherus seemed to capture the mood the author was after. I then paired the stitched type over the photo (with the consent of the photographer) and our final cover was ready:


The printed cover with a spot gloss on the title: