Teamwork with Your Designer
Illustrated picture books are great fun to design. Not only do I get to be more playful with the typography, I also get the pleasure of working together with an illustrator! Justine Allenette Ross is an accomplished illustrator who hails from Detroit, where she also teaches illustration at Wayne State University. She is represented by the Illo Agency.
Design Challenges
- Pivot to preliminary coloring book version to meet event deadlines.
- Update the artwork size and position to enhance story pacing.
- Re-set suggested cover type for a more professional look.
- Adapt to a hard cover case wrap from the original soft cover plan.
A sample of final interior spreads showing the variety of art placement, from sub page to full page and more. This was a balance of utilizing the art as provided and adapting it to accommodate the needs of the layout better.
Start at the Beginning: Layout
Whether I’m working with a new illustrator or a pro, I like to provide some typographic guidance for the interior. By creating “blank” layouts—text-only—for the illustrator, I can give them a sense of the available space on each page spread. This helps them visualize, and hopefully better utilize, the available space.
It makes my work easier because (theoretically) the space is already allotted for the type. Additionally, it allows us to ensure we’re on the same page regarding pacing/page breaks, page size, bleed, and resolution. So it is a win-win!
When Life Gives You Lemons, Make a Coloring Book
Delays happen. An overly optimistic editorial and illustration schedule, combined with delays in discussions of a possible agreement with the NHL, pushed our original timeline back. We knew we were not going to have enough time to create and print the final book in time for Strive Publishing’s Junteenth event. Unfortunately, we would also miss Strive’s brock-and-mortar bookstore grand opening.
So the decision was made to pivot to a coloring book based on the preliminary illustrations.
As a sort of “rough draft,” the coloring book allowed a closer look at the text, typesetting, and images. However, it required me to make several tweaks to the provided art to better match the narrative and layout needs.
Cover Typography + Final Art
Transitioning to the final book, the first step was updating the cover. Illustrator Justine provided a preliminary title treatment, which was “approved” even before I joined the project, and appeared on the coloring book.
While comic fonts can work, when used well, it was decided that this title was too amateurish for the final. Good call!
Jazzing it up was great fun! A collegiate/sports font for “Hockey” was used with some border embellishment. And more approachable lettering for “Everybody” with a bubbly orange outline, to contrast with the generally blue covers and tie in with the warmer colors on the title character.
The effect was originally created in InDesign. But I transferred it over to Illustrator to tweak and improve the rendering, before reinserting it into the layout in InDesign.
Aside: A Note about “Is”
Even if you are a careful editor, the capital “I” in the title may bug you. It drove me nuts. But, yes, per the Chicago Manual of Style, this is the correct title case capitalization. Still, we went back and forth on this several times, whether or not to capitalize the “I.”
The jarring effect is unfortunately accentuated by the fact that “Is for” is the only part of the title expressed in mixed lower case. And that decision was because keeping the title all caps was too strong, too angry.
It is all about balancing. And compromise.
Case Wrap Adaptation
Updating the cover was also an opportunity to reposition and extend the art for the case wrap cover. Technical detail, but a cover image that wraps around a hardcover book needs to extend quite a ways beyond the flat cover. This is to allow for positioning uncertainty, as well as the visible images on the edges and inside the cover.
The original specification had been for a softcover book. So none of this “extra” image actually existed in Justine’s art. Fortunately, I could adapt her art to extend the edge art to accommodate this change. However, it is an example of why project specifications—and early designer involvement—are good practices for publishers.
Interior Art
Within a few weeks, we had the final illustrations approved and in hand. Justine was kind enough to provide me with layered vector art. Layered digital files make it easier if I need to tweak the position of things in the illustrations to accommodate the final layout and type.
Publicity and an About Face
Author Anthony Walsh has ecstatically embraced the idea of face-to-face book promotion. He has been asking readers to post pictures of themselves with his book on social media. He attended book readings and signings at various events around town throughout the summer. He is a machine when it comes to promotion, so I had hoped to see great success for both him and Strive Publishing.
Sadly, Anthony decided to go it alone, and pulled his book from publication with Strive. After re-releasing it as a softcover (without proper attribution), he created a sloppy sequel, ultimately cheapening his entire brand.
Sometimes, as an author becomes swept up in their own success, they forget the people who helped make their book a reality—and the work it takes to create a quality book. It was a bitter lesson for all of us involved with the first edition.
