Sabrina Smith

Background

One of my good friends is an writer working on getting a few books published. Her manuscripts only exist as word documents so I asked if I could create a cover and book design for one of her stories. This would be a good opportunity to get more real world practice designing books (with the perk of being able to read it more easily). The story is about a young couple on the run in the wild west.

Solution & Impact

After receiving the blurb and manuscript, I talked with my friend to understand the key themes, characters, and intended emotional impact of the story. Sitting between Young Adult and New Adult, the book’s themes consist of love, betrayal, adventure, and danger. Using research of reader demographics and book cover trends, I determined the story would resonate with female romance and historical fiction readers the most.

Drawing inspiration from imagery and typographic styles of the era, I sketched a few initial concepts for the cover. It needed to evoke the feelings of adventure and romance for a contemporary point of view of a historical time period. I decided to use a bold but feminine western-style font for the title so a potential reader is able to quickly parse that the story features the wild west.

I really liked the idea of juxtaposing imagery between romance and murder, so this led to the idea of two smoking revolvers but the smoke is in the shape of a heart. I also liked the concept that the art and type could be nestled in a bed of daisies much like the main character enjoys doing in her free time. I chose to use a color palette that would evoke the sense of nature, romance, and blood.

I wanted the inside matter to feel whimsical and historical. I decided to create a standard 6×9 page size with margins that would allow breathing room for the text block and space for reader’s fingers on the foreedge.

I chose the Edita typeface, a unique, sharp, serif that looked interesting while still being legible. I found that 12 pt Edita on a 15 pt baseline grid was the most readable for the text block. I debated between ragged right or justification but went with ragged right so that there would not be too many rivers, widows, or orphans. I also decided to add hyphenation as it allows for a smoother rag without hindering the reader too much.

I placed small daisy motifs in the folio to frame the text block just as the cover is framed. I also used saguaro cactus glyphs for the dinkus’. I chose these motifs to directly reference the significance of these plants to the story and setting.

After finalizing the layout, front/back matter, page count, and structure, I showed my friend the design mockups. She was extremely pleased with everything and excited to see her work in an (almost) finalized form. My next step is an attempt to print and bind a copy by hand, though I am still in the process of learning hardback binding techniques.