Book Notes offers a look into my process, with behind-the-scenes context about some of my favorite cover designs.
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Brief: contemporary redesign of backlist title without using images of Chicago 7 trial defendants.
This reissue of the classic account from an eyewitness to the trial of the Chicago 7 was to coincide with the release of Netflix’s film in 2020. I developed a design that used contemporaneous typography to evoke the period and its tensions.
To visualize the volatility of the trial and the media that surrounded it, I set the type on scraps of paper that were placed on a background exploding with erratic marks. Rather than set digital type, I pulled characters from a Franklin Gothic specimen and physically placed them within the digital file, to give a sense of hand-touched type associated with protest signs from the ’68 protest.
Skills: Illustration, research, color.
Brief: Beyond Stock Images
The authors suggested using stock image silhouettes for the cover of their groundbreaking analysis of contemporary female antiheroes. In developing this cover design, I quickly realized that most available stock images reflected the male gaze in the form of idealized white women. My solution: draw my own silhouettes. I based the illustrations on five characters the book explores (Ilana and Abbi from Broad City, Issa from Insecure, Cersei from Game of Thrones, and Olivia from Scandal), and had a few interact with the type to add a touch of irreverence. The “cut paper” treatment extends throughout the spine and back cover.
Brief: 17th Century Climate Change
Menely’s book was briefed as a groundbreaking ecocriticism of 17th and 18th century poetry. It explored elements of climate change in historical periods we don’t usually associate with climate change, according to the Press website chronicling “Britain’s epochal transition from an agrarian society, buffeted by climate shocks, to a modern coal-powered nation.” The beautiful 18th century engraving’s drama is highlighted by careful cropping and text placement, as well as a neon color overlay; a connection to the contemporary lens of the book’s research is further made with a bold type treatment in Monotype’s update of Helvetica.
Brief: Cohesive difference on a global scale
This book shows how social science and humanities researchers prioritize some “model cases” in their research over others, and assesses the benefits and risks of doing so. I chose three visually distinct images to represent three “model cases” discussed in the text. In treating them as a backdrop for the scraps of paper, I unified them. Paper scraps and ephemera are used throughout the cover design to visualize the “human influence” exerted onto the research. I made design choices to appeal to markets outside of the United States, as the author hopes that this book will be adopted by researchers around the world.
Concept: Creepy, sexy, cool Puritans.
When I read the author’s ideas about Abolitionists being “haunted” by the ideas of their Puritan forebears, I set out to create a cover that put the reader in the space of those two American settings. This wonderful photograph by Fabrizio Conti could be from either an early Puritan settlement or a rural 1800s American setting. The typography is a nod to Puritan tracts, which often featured Blackletter type, and is set in red for the fiery abolitionists' inheritance from the Puritans. A colleague in marketing noted that this cover looked like a horror film poster, and that’s exactly the reaction I was intending to evoke.
*This cover was selected for AUPress’ Book, Jacket, and Journal Show 2021
Brief: Four points of view in Weimar Germany
The author was keen that the cover represent the multiple theorists (four, to be exact) discussed in this book without using their faces. Inspired by textile illustrations from Anni Albers, this jacket design utilizes color and movement to visualize interactions between Weimar writers, thinkers, and artists. In featuring four different colored threads that weave loosely together over the entirety of the book jacket, this design evokes the sometimes knotty practice of philosophical inquiry.
Skills: Research, illustration, typography.
Concept: Elegantly visualizing the intangible
Representing phenomenology is a tricky thing. In working with this title, which, perhaps unnaturally, had two double letter pairs, I turned to creating Art Deco inspired hand lettering so that ligatures could soften the impact of this repetition. I utilized a nebulous image of sunlit shadows cast by a tree to evoke phenomenological thought, and let the elegant subtitle stand out to do the work of signifying more boldly the book’s musical associations.
Skills: Research, hand-rendered typography.
Concept: Elegantly visualizing the field of study
This is one of the first book covers I designed at Chicago. It uses engravings of unearthed human tools to visualize the order and intention of archeological record-keeping. Monograph’s Masqualero was used for its elegant drama, and the chisel-inspired serifs. The entire jacket continues the theme of order and careful placement, with illustrations spilling over onto the spine and back panel.
*This cover was selected for AUPress’ Book, Jacket, and Journal Show 2020
