AS A BOOK DESIGNER, I BELIEVE I HAVE THE BEST JOB ON EARTH. I love books. I enjoy reading. I love the feeling of the images coming out of my mind while reading a book that I will design. I love the process of the words entering the thought stream, turning on the machine and getting the book translated into images, colors, letterforms.

A few weeks ago we got the manuscript to design the book cover & page layout of The Imperfect Enjoyment: A Bachelor’s Memoir by Dewan W. Gibson. That title lends itself to so many design possibilities.

I printed the manuscript and after non-stop reading & laughing for hours at Dewan’s adventures, I came up with a cover. I actually came up with several more but in the end Dewan chose that first one. Here you see the cover and the spine:

The design of the book cover

The thought that led to the cover was ‘what is an imperfection?‘: maybe something that looks perfect but it is not. At a glance, getting “I’m perfect” instead of “imperfect” is itself an imperfection.

The idea of something sexual behind the title relates to the book and is kind of like a ‘peep show’ as a metaphor for the memoir: the people by reading it are ‘peeping’ into the author’s life.

Last but not least, the typography: I chose Emigre’s Brothers because it has that reminiscence of typical college fonts (where a lot of the action takes place in the book) but it is quite more daring & works great to give that feel of excess that I was looking for.

*The word-logo on the side of this post is from the font Brothers Word Logos by Emigre

We are working on the cover for FEARLESS BEAUTY -a spiritual path to the true you – by author Kenetia Paige. Having narrowed down to 4 covers, now is time to decide.

Which one would you choose?

& here my fave, wich is out of the race…

> so, what’s next? after choosing a mock-up, we will keep working on it to get to the final cover.
That is, to produce some variations on the same cover until all the elements work -usually some title variants, colors, positioning, even the image may change, we may add or take some element.
And then, the details -image retouch, transparencies, shadows, borders, etc.-
Spine & back are always in mind, but graphically may step in at different times during the process, sometimes earlier, sometimes later.

*The crown ornament on the side of this post is from the free font Crowns & Coronets by Emerald City Fontwerks

I find the design process really interesting, maybe more than the finished work.
Why? (just my point of view) Because during that collaborative process between designer & (ideally) author is where the visual personality of the book will be defined.

PART I: The Book Cover

We get the manuscript for the design of the book cover, layout & website for A Worthy Legacy by author Tomi Akinyanmi.

A Worthy Legacy is a story about life and the passing of wisdom from one generation to the next. The author combines the last wise words of her beloved grandfather together, along with a few of her own thoughts to create a compelling story about real life.

Read the manuscript

From just a glance, the overall feel of the book should come out.

Then look for the voice: my starting point for every book is the belief that authors write books because they have something to say. By reading a manuscript, I need to find what it is that they had to say, who says it, how it is said, & from which point of view.

Sooner or later (usually very soon) some details are revealed, and often I find in those little details the key to the cover.

Reading A Worthy Legacy I learned that the author, originally from Nigeria now living in the U.S., tells many insights about the Yoruba Tribe, which totally fascinated me… & gave the book the ‘unique’ factor.
So from the reading I jump to images: search for the graphic elements – images, textures, color palette, etc – that relate to the book:

From there I get the first round of covers to send to the author, and since the first cover was my favorite, I’ve done also an option in a lighter color. Maybe I was trying to persuade? :)

Part II: The author’s feedback & second round of covers.

*The miscellanea on the side of this post is from the font Wingdings2 designed in 1992 by Bigelow & Holmes for Microsoft.

As a part of my later calligraphic incursion I got THE ENCYCLOPEDIA of CALLIGRAPHY TECHNIQUES by Hardy Wilson.
I have to say here that this is one of those cases that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover: it looked kinda like a simple craft’s book, but had really good reviews, so I decided to go for it. I never imagined that it would be so good. Really useful layout, easy to follow instructions, great examples of the different styles & tools.

Most importantly, it clearly shows the ductus, which indicates the movements of the hand to get the precious shape:

I couldn’t decide which tool to try first, which style, whatever the ductus… started to mix & match: inks, brushes, nibs, pencil. From the first round here are the vowels that I’ve drawn:

Later that night, watching TV, I couldn’t stop even while listening to a very inspiring speech:

*The ornament on the side of this post is from the free font Schluss Vignetten by Dieter Steffmann

Have you ever felt some unstoppable desire to do something? I get that once in a while and I let it grow until one day I just can’t do anything but that that I’ve been craving for: it could be to paint, to draw, always something handmade.

Lately, I’ve been feeling the need for handmade stuff (stuff = letters, miscellanea, doodling, etc) to maybe start introducing it into my usual designs, I think that it could produce some interesting results.
So I started a Fileteado Porteño workshop. The maestro fileteador is Héctor Rapisarda and here a couple photos of the class & his beautiful letters on the blackboard.

& some of the letters I’ve done during the class:

If you want to see some more Fileteado Porteño, there’s a flickr group with very interesting pieces.

*The star ornament on the side of this post is from the free font Lucky Charms by Blue Vinyl