Category: Book Design

Book Cover Design: Warriors, Saints, and Scoundrels

Combing through immense collections, Wisconsin Historical Society Press delivers short accounts of the lives of Wisconsin’s nonconformists. The book will be coming out this winter.

Marketing Pack for Authors

Poster, flyer, postcards, business cards for Corran Harrington’s new book, Follow the River Home, published by Arbor Farm Press. Cover design by Ann Weinstock. Cover photograph by David Muench. Author photo by Kim Jew.

Book Design: The News from Lone Rock

Book cover design for The News from Lone Rock, to be published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press. The book includes stories written by an early Wisconsin journalist for the Spring Green Weekly Home News from 1884–1912.

Words of Witness

One of a several ideas for a Fall book by University of Wisconsin Press about several important Black feminists and how their autobiographical works have shaped our understanding of civil rights history and activism since 1954 (Brown v. Board of Education).

A canoe trip through Wisconsin’s driftless area

This book is a seamless blend of regional memoir, travel writing, and travel guide focused on Wisconsin’s Driftless area. The anchor of the book is Lynn Diebel’s journey, with her husband, canoeing the region’s rivers, exploring one of the most dreamy, ethereal areas of the Midwest. The book will be published by University of Wisconsin Press early in 2015.

Photography Book Cover Design

The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin: Book cover for The University of Wisconsin Press. The cheesemakers featured in this book are the rock stars of the cheese industry. I have heard tourists take this book with them and collect cheesemakers’ autographs! Working on books about midwest culture (pardon the pun) is near and dear.

Mystery Series Cover Art

I hadn’t designed a series of novels before, so I’m excited by the challenge of Patricia Skalka’s Dave Cubiak Door County Mysteries (University of Wisconsin Press). Each mystery will have a unique time and setting that I will photo-illustrate, with the same chunky-creepy title type. Death Stalks is the first in the series and will be coming out late spring 2014. Learn more about the series at PatriciaSkalka.com. It’s getting great reviews!

Cookbook Cover Art and Design

Cookbook cover for Wild Rice Goose and Other Dishes of the Upper Midwest by John Motoviloff. The author, UW press production manager, and I did a quaint photo shoot for this book along Lake Mendota, just after rain, on a monolithic limestone table. While gathering materials for the shoot, I learned the difference between wild grapes and poisonous virginia creeper berries. We got the right one on the cover.

My Diva

My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them, edited by Michael Montlack. Inspiring, funny, heart-breaking stories about growing up gay. The contributors describe their  private, transforming, sometimes life-saving relationships with their celebrity Divas. A really fun photo illustration project. Great book.

This Wicked Rebellion

Sample page from a selection of letters and photographs from the Wisconsin Historical Society collections. The letters retained as much as possible their original appearance, including typos, use of capital letters, and other aspects of formatting. I restored many of the photographs. And the book included bottom-of-page footnotes. 6 x 9. 226 pages.

More than They Bargained For

I am very proud to have helped make this book. More than They Bargained For, by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel journalists Jason Stein and Patrick Marely, is the go-to-immediately resource on the conflict between the Gov. Walker administration and Unions.

Wisconsin Talks

Yah! This book has both academic and general audience interest. The authors wanted to feature examples of  Wisconsin dialects—there are quite a few, actually—that derive from German, Norwegian, Polish, Hmong, Native American Languages, and more.

Wisconsin Book Design

Book cover, When Horses Pulled the Plow: Life of a Wisconsin Farm Boy, 1910–1929 by Olaf F. Larson. It’s great fun to be handed a good black and white photograph. I enjoy repairing time’s damage, mixing a color palette, and adding other objects and textures that communicate time and place. The author, in his 90s, describes his boyhood farm, tales about his family and neighbors, and the one-room schoolhouse he attended. It’s a good bedtime read for the kids.

Something New from Old

Book cover for The Uncensored Boris Godunov: The Case for Pushkin’s Original Comedy (University of Wisconsin Press). Finding imagery of historical figures can be a challenge. Here, original art was made from a public domain image.

Book Cover Design

Bill Christofferson’s The Man from Clear Lake: Earth Day Founder Senator Gaylord Nelson (The University of Wisconsin Press). Phew! That’s a long title. Big titles are fitting for important people, I suppose. Long titles are a challenge for a designer, however. Book covers have always been important in capturing the reader’s attention, but today, in the age of Amazon, covers must do the work at thumb-nail size, so the most salient words from a title and subtitle are sometimes pulled up front to serve the reader first.

Timber!

I especially enjoy regional books about the Midwest and Great Lakes region. These books are personal and part of my own history: Wisconsin is where I live and grew up. Timber! is about the Lumberjack World Championships in the Hayward, Wisconsin. The contest began in 1960 and is still going strong today.

Win Some, Lose Some

An early draft version of a book cover. I often do 3-6 drafts of a book cover for a publisher and refine the winning idea. This is a loser. Every designer has so much work that never meets the light of day. It’s sometimes hard to let them go, but every cover is a learning experience. Designs cannot be recycled, but sometimes there are bits and pieces that become parts of winners down the road.

Russian History Book

Book cover, Liberals Under Autocracy by Anton A. Fedyashin. University of Wisconsin Press. The cover of an old journal was used as the foundation of the cover art. I added color and texture and expanded the illustration to fit the 6 x 9 book size.