How KC Studio Anthology’s Cover Team Gets It Done
By Anne-Marie Perks
A book cover is the first thing you see but it’s often one of the last things a publisher works on when creating a book. This is our approach to producing typographic design and art for the cover of KCU’s independently-produced, upcoming anthology, Let’s Go!
The Challenges of Cover Design
Depending on whether the cover is produced for a traditional publisher, an independent small publisher or self-published by an author-illustrator or collaboration, different approaches and workflows are taken.
As a book cover artist in traditional publishing, I normally work in collaboration with an art director and a designer. My role is to develop the artwork based on a brief usually written up by the marketing department. Either the art director or a designer develop the typography design for the title. The challenge in all cases is the understanding that the cover is the most commercial part of the book.
In a bookstore, the cover and spine compete against all the other beautiful books around it. Getting someone to pick up your book and take a peek is no small mission. For an anthology, the added challenge for this cover is how to represent the number of different authors, author-illustrators and stories in the book.
On the Creative Brief
The cover committee (or team as we like to call ourselves) consists of Elizabeth Perez from the Editorial Committee, Nicole Harwood from the Marketing Committee, and myself, Anne-Marie Perks, the Design Committee leader. From the start, we gelled as a team DASH full of ideas and enthusiasm for the job we were entrusted to do. Coming from different backgrounds just added to the varied flavours poured into our evolving ideation.
The initial brief we developed outlined goals to have a strong typographic design element that worked as a stand-alone but integrated well with the cover artwork. We had similar tastes in whimsical, on the edge of fantasy, content that would include the spaces those characters inhabit or visit, the potential for adventure and the characters they might meet. We decided against highlighting any specific character or creature from the many stories in the anthology and aimed for a broad perspective on the theme. Not an easy task!
First Round Design Comps
As part of our ideation, we looked at existing covers inspiration and that we felt met the above criteria in some way. Then we began to play with the typography design for the title and the content of the artwork. Very quickly, we decided on a colour palette of blues, greens and purples playing not only with the warm and cools within the range of those colours, but also opening to the accent points for warm oranges, golds and pinks.
The first roughs were presented in black and white. Fairly common in industry, presenting initial ideas in black and white helps keep the focus on form, layout and structure. One of my past creative directors always said: “If it doesn’t work in black and white, it won’t work in colour.” The art director doesn’t want you to do too much as things will change. In most cases, a first comp will go through the designer and or the art director and marketing. In our case, the first comps have gone to the Publishing Committee to give feedback.
This is where the importance of feedback comes in. We might be asked if we’ve managed to “stay on brief” or if we’ve strayed into something else entirely. There’s a tendency to get too close to one’s work. It’s easy to think a concept is understandable and reads well when it might not be comprehended by viewers. While getting too into details at this stage can be distracting or even misleading, feedback at this point will pick up on composition and readability. Whether you agree with the feedback or not, it is always information.
Into the Final Stretch of the Cover Design
Since the beginning of the project, we agreed to produce three different cover concepts to take to final, rather than one design evolving as a single collaboration. In the second round, we developed colour roughs that took into account the feedback from round one. The evolution from black and white to colour was exciting. However, the timeline set for deadlines didn’t allow us to languish for too long in completing the colour rough phase. That pressure only further energised our team and kept us focused on feedback from the publishing committee.
Anne-Marie Perks is an author- illustrator, award winning painter and stop motion animator who loves telling stories in different mediums. She is published in the UK and the US and teaches animation and illustration at Buckinghamshire New University. Her published books include picture books, older fiction and wordless books and her ‘big’ project currently is an autobiographical fiction graphic novel.
For additional insights into the artists’ process, check out their personal blog post .
On Kickstarter Cover Images
By Patrick Lugo & Nicole Harwood
An important detail of the cover design was considering how to present our project on Kickstarter to attract an audience. There could be a thesis dissertation about what makes a successful Kickstarter image.
Part of the decision making process included identifying horizontal moments that could be easily transformed into something perfect for a Kickstarter image. Additionally, our Kickstarter image may go through a series of evolutions throughout the campaign. From color changes to adding in our title design and sticker designs it’ll be fun to compare our starting image to the wrap-up variation. You’ll have to stay tuned!
But first, you’ll have to see how our cover transformed into a Kickstarter image by checking out our pre-launch Kickstarter page and make sure to click that Notify Me On Launch button while you’re there!
Nicole Harwood is an author/illustrator from Vancouver, WA. As an ASL/English Interpreter, she plays with language daily. Off work hours are spent on local theater stages, working on her debut graphic novel, or with her husband and three Neurodivergent sons. You can find her at https://nharwood124.wixsite.com/ohhhh-doodles.
Patrick Lugo’s comics first saw print while still a student at SVA. His art has since appeared on book and album covers as well as T-shirts and event posters. More recently he illustrated an award winning children’s book and created graphic novels for every age range. Find him online at PLUGOarts.com