Book Design Process

Following is an example of a typical design assignment:

Example: Greg Tamblyn, "Atilla the Gate Agent"

Step 1: Getting started

Greg Tamblyn is a well known entertainer, raconteur, singer, songwriter and humorous writer. He was referred to me by another client when he decided he wanted to create a book out of his travel stories that were at once humorous, poignant and affecting. I always start with either the manuscript or at minimum, an interview in which I find out about the book. In his case, he sent me the manuscript.

He had a great title, based on one of his stories in which a favorite guitar was mutilated because of an unfortunate experience with an airport gate agent.

He wanted to be able to sell the book at his concerts. The book was not long, a bit over 100 pps. He selected a 5 x 8" format for it so that it would be a bit larger than pocket size. He knew he wanted the cover to have a humorous tone, or reflect his generally keen but gentle wit, but otherwise had no idea what he wanted it to look like, so he elected to have me produce three different themes/approaches. At first, he didn't think he wanted himself featured on the cover.

I knew that the cover should reflect these key points: it should be humorous/witty, clue the reader that it was about Greg's traveling tales as he worked his way around the globe, support the title, 'Atilla the Gate Agent' with appropriate visuals having to do with travel/airports...maybe even illustrate that particular story.

I came up with three approaches with that: in mind... a sort of Monty Python pictoral collage that worked in bits of most of the stories, starting with a fearsome Gate Agent, a simpler pictoral of his favorite guitar with a whimsical title treatment that only hinted at funny travel stories, and a high contrast color version with a cartoon of Greg on the cover:

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Step 2: Narrowing the Choices Down These visual comps were 'roughed out' as quickly as I could without laboring detail to give the basic concept of each. From these, Greg decided that the first was 'too much information' (though he later came back and said he might want to try that cover on a new and expanded version of the book); he also ruled out the third, feeling though it was appealing, it was 'not enough information', so he decided I should expand on the second idea I started in the second, with the travel-sticker covered guitar. We also discussed how 'branding' him as a performer-writer might be a good idea for future book sales, and so we determined I would work him onto the cover, also. With these decisions arrived at, I produced another version of cover two, featuring Greg himself. Greg supplied photos, and I created him as the center- piece of a gently humorous cover that told the story of his experiencing many fine tales to share with his audience:

Step 3: Make a selection and refine the details.

From here it was a simple matter of tweaking details, making sure the headlines and text were not only readable, but also reached out and 'grabbed' the audience.

Step 4: Prepare for Print

The next step is to assemble the cover for final printing. Some printers supply templates to use designed for their process, but at miniumum, the cover will have to comply with the respective printer's printing specifications. Then putting some text on the back cover that let people know what was in Greg's book and why it would be fun and interesting to read, a little about Greg himself, and details like his website address, publishing company and where to buy his stuff.