Yeah, Part One was insanely long. I’m kind of surprised that anyone actually read it! Sorry, I’m not a good condenser. Part Two is going to be a little easier to read, though, I promise!

Do you read the books before you design the covers?

Yes, for the most part. I’m very conscious of wanting to respect the author’s intent when I’m working on a cover, and as a reader, I know how nice it is to read a book and see the imagery on the cover start to take shape in words as the story progresses.

See that photo up at the top of this post? Those are all uncorrected manuscripts, and I’m usually reading one or two of them at any given time. Usually they just come to me as a stack of loose papers, but every now and then I’ll get a bound copy or a previous edition of the book if it was previously published elsewhere (in the UK, for example, or by a self-published author whose work took off). I usually clip together about 50 pages at a time to read during my commute to and from work so I’m not dragging the whole thing around with me. While I’m reading, I’ll fold pages that are visually evocative. Sometimes I’ll take notes if I get a specific cover idea that I don’t want to forget, but usually I just try to absorb the tone of the book and pay attention to recurring themes and any special objects in the book that might hold significant meaning.

The only times I don’t read a book before getting to work are, obviously, if the manuscript isn’t available yet (this tends to be the case with most non-fiction titles, as well as with some authors who have scheduled, multi-book contracts), or if the book is serial genre fiction (mystery, romance, etc.) with a pre-defined “look”. At the very least, I’ll get a short description of the book and its plot, and I can usually ask the editor to ask the author for character descriptions and location details.

How much say do authors have in the cover design?

It really depends on the author. Some are very easygoing and hands-off, and others prefer to get more involved and specific about exactly what they’d like to see. In general, though, by the time my art director comes to me with an assignment, the publisher, editor, author, and agent have all discussed the subject and taken various factors (sales of previous books, comparable competitive titles, publication season, etc.) into consideration.

As the process progresses, the publisher and editor will decide which submitted covers to share with the author and agent, who will then give feedback and request changes. In other words, there may be dozens of cover options that filter through various channels within the company before the author even sees a single one, but generally speaking, nothing goes to print without the author giving a stamp of approval.

Does the author get to decide who designs their cover?

It’s very rare that this happens, but when it does, it’s usually an outside designer with some kind of personal connection to the author. The publisher will always have the final say, though—Aunt Betty doesn’t get to design a cover in Microsoft Word just because her nephew with the book deal wants her to. If Rodrigo Corral is your best friend, though, then yeah, you can probably pick him to design your cover.

What’s your favorite part of your job? Least favorite?

I have a lot of both, but the best moment for me is always getting an email from an author letting me know that they love the cover I designed for their book. That’s the best feeling—even better than seeing the book hit the New York Times bestseller list (that makes me feel good too, though!). I really appreciate it when authors take the time to thank their designer. Not all of them do.

My least favorite part of the job is probably getting stuck and running out of ideas. This usually happens when I’ve gone through a dozen rounds of revisions and 30–40 different covers, and I’m nowhere closer to having an approved cover than I was on day one. That’s a bad feeling, and usually culminates in me getting very teary-eyed and sad when I come home at the end of the day. I don’t like feeling as though I’ve disappointed everyone.

Do you keep copies of all the books you’ve designed?

No. I design a lot of book covers—at least a hundred or so every year. Out of a hundred books, I’d say I’m happy with about ten of the final covers. I keep copies of the ones I like, though, as well as any that I might need to refer to in the future when working on subsequent books by the author. I don’t bring any of them home, though—they’re all on shelves in my office. I have an arm’s length mentality about that kind of thing.

How long is your commute to work?

If I’m coming from Newburgh, it takes about two hours door to door (ferry, train, foot). If I’m in the apartment in Manhattan, it’s about 35 minutes (subway, foot).

Do you ever get to meet with the authors face-to-face?

Yes, sometimes! Just a couple of days ago I got to meet Liza Marklund, who was lovely and charming and very kind when speaking about the cover design for Red Wolf. Sometimes authors I design covers for will find me online, which is fun. A couple of them read this blog! I always try to let authors know when I like their books, too. One of the best side benefits of my job is getting to read stuff I might not have known about otherwise.

Okay, that’s enough for now! I still have a bunch of questions to answer, and I promise I’ll get there. Thank you for reading along this far…

“Imaginary Friends”, 1997. I was very into Reid Miles/Blue Note at the time.

So, wow. That’s a lot of questions! I was kind of expecting the usual five or six that I get asked all the time, but some of you got in really deep—I’m finding myself thinking about aspects of my job that I’ve never even considered before.

I’m floored by the variety of jobs that you all have, too, including a few that I didn’t even know exist. Isn’t it amazing how many things we humans need to know how to do in order to make our sustain our societies? I remember my parents telling me at a very young age that every single job is an important one in its own way, from garbageman to president to dancer to doctor, and I truly believe that. Every single person has something they can do well and love, and the luckiest among us are the ones who know what that thing is.

I tend to be a little lot on the wordy side when it comes to writing (I think I was the only person in my college art history classes decreasing the leading and margin widths on my papers in an effort to make them seem shorter), so I’m going to have to break my responses up into categories. It might take me longer than a day or two to answer everything properly, so please bear with me!

The most-asked questions were about (a) how I got to be a book cover designer, and (b) what one has to do to become a book cover designer. I think the easiest way to answer those questions is to first give some background on my own educational experience.

I was raised in a very artistically-minded family (my mother is a graphic designer and painter; my father is a painter and art instructor—and that’s just the first generation of my immediate family), and while it’s easy to say that growing up in a creative environment led me to where I am now, I have a bunch of older brothers and sisters who wound up doing doing completely different (and super cool) things for a living. The common thread among us is an ability to creatively problem-solve. That, and we’re all kind of nuts.

I did grow up knowing that professional careers in the arts are possible, though, and I think that’s something that might be eschewed by a lot of guidance counselors and well-meaning parents. I’ve been exposed to the realities of working in fine art and commercial art for my entire life, and jobs in those fields are what seem “normal” to me. That said, when I enrolled in college at SUNY Purchase in 1993, I did so not in the School of the Arts, but in in the Liberal Arts department. I thought I would major in English Literature and become a writer. I’ve always been an avid reader and book-lover, and writing is something that comes naturally to me, so why not?

I realized about halfway through my first semester that I didn’t want to continue on that path. There wasn’t anything wrong with my classes or my professors, but I just knew in my bones that I wanted to do something else. Like maybe what my parents do. I remember seeing one of my suitemates spreading out squares of colored paper and creating Josef Albers-eqsue arrangements to complete an assignment for her Color Theory class, and just feeling so jealous. And like I’d made a huge mistake.

Long story slightly less long, I wound up transferring to the School of Art+Design at Purchase College (same campus, completely different program). I got my BFA through the graphic design program. The approach to graphic design at Purchase leans heavily toward the fine art aspect of the field rather than commercial application, and, as the program description on their website states, “encourages overlaps with other areas in Art+Design (e.g., printmaking, photography, furniture design, video, and new media)”.

I’m not sure if this is still the case, but Purchase used to be one of the only schools in the country to offer an MFA program with a concentration in Book Arts. The art department included a letterpress studio with a huge lead-type foundry, a book bindery, and an offset lithography press. The printmaking facilities were also impressive, and I was able to take classes in all of the above areas, as well as silkscreening, intaglio printing, photography, and plenty of art and design history classes. My foundation was still in graphic design, but the emphasis of the program was not on learning computer programs.

Yes, I did learn the basics of the computer programs that were in use at the time (I remember when layers were first introduced in Photoshop—very exciting!), but that was really secondary. I do realize that this has probably changed as the years have passed, and I absolutely think it’s important to have a very good working knowledge of the tools best suited for any job (in other words, you really do have to know InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator in order to work as a graphic designer in 2010), but that knowledge alone does not equip a person with the ability to be a good designer. I cannot emphasize this enough. Furthermore, graphic design is not the same thing as painting or photography or any other creative field, and it’s a common misconception that a person with a good visual sense in one field can easily translate it to another (I say this as someone who is endlessly frustrated by my lackluster abilities as a photographer!).

Because I’ve always been a workaholic freak with a fear of downtime, I had a full-time job while I was in college full-time. I worked at Borders, first as a café barista (you should have seen the adorable signs I made for the pastry case!), and then as a bookseller and new book merchandiser. I love books. Love, love, love. I can’t get enough of them. I love holding them, smelling them, borrowing them, lending them, touching their pages, and yes, even reading them. For my senior project, I designed, offset-printed (with the help of my advisor and mentor, book artist Philip Zimmermann), and bound 20 copies of an image and type-based book about imaginary friends. I commissioned an illustrator, Derek Van Gieson, to make a drawing of me for the cover. Looking back on it 13 years later, I can see that my aesthetic hasn’t really changed that much—but I have gotten much better with my execution!

One of my professors at Purchase, Bill Deere, approached me at my graduation ceremony (my commencement speakers were Chuck Close and Wesley Snipes!) and asked me if I was interested in designing book covers. I said yes. He said cool. I said yeah. And then he gave me a piece of paper with a phone number on it, and told me a former student of his was an art director at a big publishing house, and that I should give her a call. So I did! I set up an interview and got together my portfolio (filled entirely with student work). I was literally one week out of school when I went in to meet with the department head, and I had no idea what I was doing. I’ve never been a plan-ahead kind of gal, so I really just winged it. He liked my portfolio, but he kept coming back to the fact that I’d been working in a book store, and that I really love books. As much as he could see that I was a competent entry-level designer, I think it was the fact that I understood the marketing and saleability of books and what makes them attractive to consumers that gave me the extra edge.

A week later, I had a job offer. I gave my two weeks notice at Borders, and started my job as a book cover designer exactly one month after I graduated from college. I still work in the same art department at the same publishing company today! Over the years, I’ve advanced from Designer One to Junior Designer to Senior Designer, and I’m happy being at this level and having the responsibilities that come with this position. I work with a lot of the same people that were there when I started (four of us went to Purchase, though not all at the same time), and the environment is very tight-knit. I definitely have days when I dread going to work (mostly because the dogs look soooooo comfortable lying in bed), but it’s never because I don’t like what I do or who I work with. I am a very lucky person, and I hope my coworkers know how much they mean to me. (Hi, guys!)

So that’s the story of how I got where I am. I’m sure there are a lot of ways to become a book cover designer (I mean, it’s not like I’m an architect or anything super-superior like that, after all), but this is how I did it. The number one most important thing is to LOVE books and LOVE typography and LOVE all kinds of design, and the number two thing is to accept and understand that the job of a commerical designer is almost always to please a client, attract a customer, and sell a product. I do think art school is a great thing (specifically a school with a design program), as is a knowledge of art and design history, but I’m sure there are plenty of self-taught kids out there doing amazing things, and far be it from me to say their work isn’t valid just because they don’t have a formal education. If you want to do this, you kind of just have to start doing it. Design book covers for self-published authors. Design a bunch of fake book covers (portfolio content doesn’t have to be “real”!). Go to bookstores, and see what’s on the shelves. Check out some graphic design history books from the library. Look at book design websites. Put together a portfolio that will show an art director you know what a book cover needs to do, and that you’re able to bring something new to the table, too.

I realize this might not be the specific advice you were interested in getting regarding breaking into the industry, but it’s all I’ve got. I do recommend that you read some of the “Ask Nubby” posts from fellow blogger and designer Nubby Twiglet, too, because she’s much more practical than I am—and she’s got some great advice: Ask Nubby!

(More essays answers to come!)