The jacket racket

The Post has published a great roundtable with book designers Bill Douglas, Ingrid Paulson, Angel Guerra, Terri Nimmo and Kelly Hill. Lots of fun and informative bits, such as:

IP: As far as the approval process, I will submit to my contact, whether it’s an art director, production manager, or editor. And they will disseminate. As a freelancer I have very little contact with who it’s disseminated to but the input comes from editorial, marketing, sales, the publisher, the author, the author’s agent-

AG: The author’s wife.

IP: The author’s wife and friends.

KH: The author’s neighbour.

AG: Doctor.

BD: Indigo Books.

IP: Son or daughter.

KH: Costco.

IP: Sometimes the sales rep goes as far as to talk to the major chains to see whether or not this will fly. That happens a lot of times when it’s something that’s risky. And so they’re testing waters. And testing waters becomes this ocean of people coming back at us and literally watering down the cover. If a cover that is a really good design get through, it’s a miracle, because a lot of times I don’t think they’re ever thinking about the reader. They are but they’re thinking more importantly about Indigo, Costco. They’re thinking about the sales people who are going out to small bookstores way beyond the GTA, way beyond the Lower Mainland, Vancouver, way beyond Montreal. Into small towns and communities. And whether or not that will work, despite population. “Does it sell in Moose Jaw?” becomes a pretty standard line I hear. No, that won’t sell in Moose Jaw. Well, it will sell in the GTA, in the lower mainland, Montreal. It will sell in Halifax. It will sell in the big cities. Calgary, Edmonton. It will sell in those bigger areas. Why are you worried about Moose Jaw here?

Judging a Book By Its Cover—The Killing Circle

Welcome to the latest installment of Judging a Book By Its Cover. This time I’m looking at Andrew Pyper’s The Killing Circle. I thought it would be fun to talk to the actual designer of the book rather than me babbling on about it, so thanks to the kind people at Random House I was able to do an interview with Terri Nimmo. Here it is:

CanCult: Why don’t you start by telling us how you usually approach the design of a book.

Terri: I usually approach the design of a book with a mild form of anxiety. The initial blank page of nothingness on my screen usually induces it. So I tend to procrastinate a bit by working on other projects, joking around with coworkers, daydreaming, all in hopes that the cover will design itself. Ideas seem to flow best when panic sets in. Deadlines are a great cure for anxiety.

CanCult: The Killing Circle has none of the usual design elements you see in bookstores these days — you know, the strong, single image on a glossy cover, usually some sort of person or body part or plane or plane part. Instead, we’ve got a muted colour, some faded text and a scribble. A scribble as the focal point! And without that scribble the title would fade away into the background colour. Why don’t you tell us how you came to this design?

Terri: After an initial design meeting with Doubleday and discussions with the managing editor, I went away and read the manuscript. The idea was inspired by the wonderful energy and tension found in the plot of The Killing Circle. While I scratched my head trying to nail down a concept to best represent that, I jotted random thoughts down on paper and then “scribbled” each failed idea out and, as silly as this may seem, I think that was probably my “Aha!” moment.

I worked and reworked the scribble, scanned it in, and all else just fell into place. The faded text was an added layer to give the scribble some visual context and to give some background texture to the cover. The hint of colour was chosen to imitate the “off-whiteness” of text stock often used for the interior pages of a book. Ultimately this was a concept that took on a life of its own.

CanCult: The design is also wonderfully textural. When I saw the ARC, it didn’t really move me. Then when I got the finished product, I couldn’t stop turning it over in my hands and looking at it. I love the subtly raised text on the front, and the handwriting typeface. And there are so many little gems – the pencil work on the inside, the ragged jacket copy on the flap, the different underscores between the front and the spine (although they cover all the letters of the title between them). It’s quite beautiful – and unusual. What made you choose to emphasize the tactile elements so much?

Terri: The scribble made me do it. Really. It was the reason for choosing the paper stock that we decided to print the jacket on. The uncoated stock brilliantly retained the colour of the pencil lead and made it feel believable. The handwriting helped to create that tension found in the plot. And the overall effects were used purposefully to connect the readers to the story and to emphasize the idea of Andrew’s psychotic serial killer. Credit should also go to Carla Keane in our production department for bringing all of these elements together.

CanCult: Did you have any other ideas for the design of The Killing Circle, or was this the only contender?

Terri: In the initial design meeting, I was given an idea to work with — chairs in a circle. It went a few rounds and finally the idea was exhausted. It was a little too literal and a bit static on the page. The Killing Circle is a fast-paced read that needed to be visually represented by something equally dynamic.

CanCult: Do designers at big houses like Doubleday generally work alone or in tandem with marketing and other editors? How many drafts do you generally go through?

Terri: Yes, we book designers generally work alone. We take the fragments of ideas during a design meeting, go away with the manuscript and try to piece everything together. Yet we’re never truly alone. Cover designs are determined through an approval process, which includes input from editors, sales people, publisher, president, and the author (which may include a sub approval process by their agent, family members and friends). On good days approvals come swift and painless right out of the gate. While other days, quite the opposite, it could take more than twenty versions of a cover concept and/or tweaks to get to the finish product.

CanCult: How different are your approaches to a paperback as opposed to a hardcover?

Terri: In a book’s second life, the main difference in approach is that there is a lot less room to work with. The book is generally smaller than the hardcover, yet there are more text elements to fit on the front cover of a paperback. For instance, the title/subtitle with the author name, then possibly a quote or two (sometimes three or more), plus well deserved brag lines and maybe even a fancy award seal, followed by the usual cries from those in the know, “Make the type BIGGER!”

CanCult: The question every writer wants to ask: Did you involve Andrew at all in the process? Or is it better to keep writers out of it?

Terri: Doubleday makes every effort to ensure the author approves and loves the cover. Andrew was involved in the approval process, but stood back and gave the design process some breathing space. His only humble request was to make his name smaller on the cover.

As a book designer, it means a lot to me that the author is ultimately happy with the packaging of his work, but it’s a rare feat for a writer to art direct successfully. I suppose as much as it is for a designer to edit a writer.

CanCult: Who’s another book designer you really admire? What about other books — anything else out there this season really catching your eye?

Terri: I admire John Gall in the US and Kerrin Hands here in Toronto.

And I also work with a talented team of designers that include two amazing award-winning designers whose work I respected long before I had the opportunity work with them, Kelly Hill and Scott Richardson.

Top of mind for current eye-catching covers include Boys in the Tree by Mary Swan, also recent Booker Prize Winner, The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, and Tara Grescoe’s Bottom Feeder.

CanCult: What do you do when you’re not designing books? Are you a practicing artist outside of the publishing industry or anything like that?

Terri: I travel, enjoy life with my husband, and practice the art of reading for pleasure.