Olde skool tools for modern tymes. In my process I use everything, but I have a special place in my heart for these timeless shapers of letters.

Designing a cover for a women’s novel  isn’t as easy as it used to be. The line between “romance” and “literature” is getting increasingly blurry, and all of a sudden (with the merciless invention of the Kindle) nobody seems to want to be caught reading something that looks like a romance. So even if a book is about Love, somehow it has to look neutral. Yeah, Love. Whatever. I’ll call you, but maybe not. It’s cool . . . .

This cover for author Emily Giffin was a lengthy process. There is a lot at stake in a cover design for a major author. Even if a book is found online and is never picked up before purchase, the little half-inch avatar on the screen that represents the book has to capture the imagination. Once the book is in someone’s hands the job of the book cover is to support the reader’s belief in the words inside and to create a loyal bond. The book jacket also has to sit around, sometimes for years, when it isn’t being read. While it seems to be languishing idly on coffee tables and night stands it is actually working hard, whispering to anyone who walks into the room, come over here, sit down, fall in love with the world between these covers. It has to have presence.

I started out this cover design by testing scripts that could express different flavors of modern love. Casual, sophisticated, breezy, or nostalgic (just a little) for the days of holding hands.

New direction came in to go a bit retro, and “ornamental/but not.” Very tricky to get these particular words to lock up decoratively, and still read quickly at one-half inch on a small smartphone, the ultimate test these days. This one was drawn with pens and curves and then I laid in color and charcoal.