It’s a little scary, my tiny new air plant, isn’t it? I hung it by the window in my office, and I keep glancing back over my shoulder to see if it’s creeping any closer while I’m not looking.

I have some kind of weird phobia that’s sort of like trypophobia, but not really. I feel sick when I look at clusters of things like certain kinds of plant roots (leeks are horrifying!) or rice stuck in a sink strainer. It’s impossible to explain to someone who doesn’t feel the same way, but trust me, it’s real—and my air plant is doing weird things to my mind. I can’t stop looking at it, but I also want to look away…

My air plant comes from Air Plant Supply Co., and it’s held in place by its roots and doesn’t need any soil. Every week, I have to give it a bath. In other words, I’ll probably kill it in no time! Heh. No, I’m really going to try to keep this thing alive.

The hanging pod it’s in comes from ceramacist Michael McDowell’s company Mudpuppy, who I wrote about previously in relation to one of my other nightmares, the one where all of my teeth fall out. This guy has quite a knack for honing right in on the things that make me feel uncomfortable, and I like it!

Photos from Mudpuppy

I can’t decide if putting the air plant in a ceramic baby head makes it more or less terrifying! Displaying it alongside a ceramic skull definitely adds something, but then you know how I feel about decorative skulls. The more the merrier!

OH, HEY! I just noticed that the Mudpuppy plant pods are actually on sale at Fab.com right now for 30% off regular price. Full disclosure: If you use this link to sign up for a Fab.com account, I will get a credit if you buy something within a month of joining. Ordinarily that’s not something I’d put here on the blog, but there’s no way to buy stuff from Fab.com without making an account first. It’s an invitation-based, design-focused shopping site, and quite honestly I’m a little addicted.

My love for neon-hot pink continues to abound. I’ve noticed it creeping into my Instagram photos a lot over the past couple of weeks.

ONE ♡ I finally ordered a THERE IS THUNDER IN OUR HEARTS tote bag from Fieldguided, and of course I opted for the fluoro pink version. I lovelovelove Kate Bush, by the way. Her new album, 50 Words For Snow, is out next week—but it’s streaming now on NPR.

TWO ♡ Why exactly did I buy neon pink duct tape? You got me, but I was at Target and there it was, so home with me it went. I’m presently hoping for something to require duct-taping in the near future. I keep thinking about Bertjan Pot’s duct tape rug, too…

THREE ♡ I used neon orange ink for the hardcover edition of this book, but for the paperback (out next June), I went with Pantone 806—my favorite chip in the book, and the hottest neon pink imaginable. It’s not a color I get to use often in printed work, so I seized the opportunity!

FOUR ♡ I’ve been working my way through the same bulk package of neon pink highlighters for about 10 years now, and as of yesterday, I’m down to my last one. As Charlie pointed out, the classic Sanford Pocket Accent doesn’t even look like this anymore—in fact, they’ve dropped the Sanford name completely, and are now just branded as Sharpies. Apparently I’ve been doing a highlighter time-warp for the past decade.

FIVE ♡ Is there anything that doesn’t look better with neon pink washi tape on it? If there is, I haven’t discovered it yet. Lately I’ve been using it to wrap around packages in lieu of ribbon or string, and as decoration on top of utilitarian packing tape when putting something wrapped in brown paper in the mail.

SIX ♡ Despite the fact that my iPhone is basically glued to my side at all times, I still can’t give up my neon Post-it Notes. I always use the pink ones first and hope someone else will take the others! I write everything on Post-Its. I even stick them to my iPhone! And to my wallet. And to the cash inside my wallet. And all over my computer monitor. Like I’ve said before, I’ve gotta write stuff down.

Oh, hello there! Remember me? I’m Anna. I used to have a blog—this one right here that you’re reading, in fact! I also used to have time to do things like tile bathrooms, vacuum, go outdoors, shower, cook, think, and sleep.

I’ve written plenty here about what I do for a living, and I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I like working in-house for a publishing company. I love it, in fact. I’ve been at my job for nearly 14 years now, and I have no desire say goodbye to my 9–5 job (which is really more like 9:30–6:30, but you know what I mean). There are times, though, when I like to design something that’s not a book cover. And sometimes I also think it might be nice to have a little extra cash. More than both of those things, though, I really like to help people and make stuff look nice.

So I started taking on some freelance design work. Which turned into lots of freelance design work. Which then became lots and lots of freelance design work. Before I knew it, I was working about 100 hours a week between my full-time job and my “night shift.” My freelance hours started to outnumber my full-time hours, leaving me with the equivalent of about 2½ full-time jobs.

And that’s not alright.

If you follow me on Twitter, then you are probably well aware of ever-increasing stress levels and ever-decreasing sleeping hours, since that’s all I really talk about anymore. I’m busy, I’m tired, I’m drinking coffee, I’m still awake, I’m busy, I’m going to have another coffee…and holy mackerel, I’m so tired. Ad nauseum.

After this weekend, I’m taking a break from doing freelance work for a while. I’m not sure how long, but I need to stop, step back, and think about what I really want to be getting out of the work that I’m electing to do in my free time. I’ve learned some lessons over the past few months:

1. It is okay to say no. I know that seems obvious, and I’m sure we all think we know already, but it’s hard for me to say no to people. I think this is especially true of those of use who truly LOVE what do for a living, either because we tend to see our work as an extension of our everyday lives, or because we honestly just like to make someone happy by saying YES. Also—and I know my fellow designers with sympathize—sometimes you don’t want to say no to a project because you worry that it will wind up in the hands of someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, and then there will just be one more piece of bad design in the world. Yes, that is a completely self-important attitude loaded to the brim with ridiculousness, but it’s the truth.

2. Money doesn’t really motivate me. Yes, it’s great to not have to struggle to make ends meet and to be able to buy nice things every now and then, but really—I don’t care much about money. I never think about potential income in relation to the work that I do. Book publishing is a notoriously low-paying field of design, and I’m okay with that. I always have been, because I love books and I love designing the packages that contain them. The same goes for the non-book freelance work that I do. I really have to care about the project (and the person or people behind it) in order with it to be worth my time. After all, if it’s not about the money, the reason take on a job has to be a little more meaningful than “because it’s there.”

3. I am always going to be one person, and there are always going to be 24 hours in a day. Again, I know that’s obvious, but I’ve had some moments of delirium lately in which I am fully convinced that if I could only clone myself or hit my head on the bathroom sink and invent a flux capacitor, then maybe I’d be able to get my work done. This is crazy-talk. No one should elect to live their life this way just because they don’t know how to say no (see item #1).

4. There’s more to life than coffee, you know (but not much more). I make no secret about my love of coffee, but that love should really be based more on enjoying the taste, the aroma, and the ritual of the brewing process—not on a desperate need to consume as much as possible in order to avoid drooling on my keyboard at 3AM. I mean…really now.

5. I am totally in the right field of work. I love being a designer. I love taking on challenges that require me to think about structure, organization, space and hierarchy. I love making grids. I love doing font research. I love showing something I’ve done to a client and having them get excited (and sometimes even cry—you know who you are!) about seeing their words or product or music wrapped up and presented in a way that perfectly represents exactly who they are and what they do. I love finishing a project and feeling like it looks like me, too. I like making stuff look good. I love that putting two colors together can make someone feel happy. I like pretty things that work well.

I’m really looking forward to getting normal amounts of sleep, though, and having time to just be a human every now and then.

I’ve been under the weather for the past couple of days and I didn’t really have the mental energy to do real work, so I used the opportunity to freshen up my portfolio site a bit. I have very little patience for or interest in designing stuff for myself, so I’ve been putting this off for ages.

I think I might actually get around to having some real business cards printed up, too. Can you believe I’ve never* had business cards? I’m forever scrawling my name and URL on the backs of receipts and cocktail napkins. Part of me feels like being able to say, “Here, take my card” will be a true certification of grown-up-ness, and that freaks me out a little. Okay, a lot. The only thing left after business cards are nude pantyhose, and I’m definitely not going down that road.

*That’s a lie. Last year I printed a sheet of 12 cards in a fit of panic before an “industry” party I went to. Then, as I was frantically trimming them down, I sliced off a huge hunk of my left thumb with an X-Acto knife. I then proceeded to bleed all over the cards. It was all very Cheese Monkeys.

So…I’m pretty tired. Exhausted, actually. I’m doing WAY too many things at once, and while there is an end to this madness in sight, I’ve been feeling more than slightly crazed lately.

I was just in the kitchen refilling my iced coffee glass at 12:32AM (Mommy, if you’re reading this, I swear I really am alright—and don’t pretend like you don’t get the late-night work crazies just like I do!) when a single thought ran across my brain:

Oh my god, this is all JUST LIKE that episode of “Ren & Stimpy” where Ren goes insane and eats soap.

Now, I realize that even just thinking that is kind of nuts, but I immediately had to go and watch the clip to see if, in fact, I am becoming a deformed cartoon Chihuahua with SPACE MADNESS.

And yes. Yes I am.

I love my job a whole lot. Designing stuff is what I do for a living, but it’s also what I do because I love to do it. Lately I’ve had the opportunity to do my job alongside a few friends who also love what they do, which makes work extra-fun.

Earlier today, I flicked the switch on the redesign of sfgirlbybay that I’ve been working on for the past couple of months. Victoria is not only one of my favorite bloggers, but she’s also one of my favorite people. Having the opportunity to work on her blog was a dream come true! Making the project even sweeter was getting to design a site around the new logo artist Shanna Murray created for Victoria. I hope you’ll stop over and take a look if you haven’t already. I think what we came up with just suits Victoria’s style and personality so well.

This was a very, very special project for me. I’m just so happy Victoria trusted her amazing blog in my hands!

I’ve known Nubby Twiglet for years, and during that time I’ve watched her grow into an incredible designer with a style that’s unmistakably her own. Nubby has a clear vision when it comes to fashion and photography as well, and as soon as I found out I’d be designing the cover for Rev Jen’s new book, Elf Girl (previously titled Elf Like Me), I knew she was the person to go to for the right cover shot. I’m pretty sure the first question I asked her was, “Hey, do you have any elf shoes?”

Nubby was a perfect collaborator—she took my art direction perfectly, and understood exactly what I needed. Her shots and styling were so perfect that I was able to come up with 10 cover concepts in a single afternoon! Very satisfying. The final cover is on the left (the book is out in October), and you can see some of the unused designs in the right.

This poster marked the second time I’ve worked with musician Roger O’Donnell. The first was about six years ago on a CD jacket, and it was really quite nice to do it again. I’ve known Roger since I was just starting out as a designer in my early 20s, so to know that he respects my work well enough to ask me to create something for him—this time a poster announcing a performance of his work—is a truly great feeling.

Last year, Roger musically recreated the David Hockney painting Bigger Trees Near Warter Or/Ou Peinture Sur Le Motif Pour Le Nouvel Age Post-Photographique, and in July of this year, the piece was performed by an orchestra of young musicians at the Guildhall School of Music. You can read about the entire process as well as watch video diaries and download demos here.

Thank you, friends. It’s been a pleasure.

For the past couple of months, I’ve had the pleasure of working with superhero vegan cookbook author (remember this review?) and Post Punk Kitchen founder Isa Chandra Moskowitz on the illustration and design work for a really awesome new endeavor she launched today, the Teal Cat Project.

The Teal Cat Project works like this: You donate $25, and in return, you get a Teal Cat tchotchke. 100% of your $25 then goes toward funding a cat rescue program. The first affiliated group is the NYC Feral Cat Initiative, who train and educate rescuers about trap-neuter-return (TNR) practices to keep feral cat populations in New York City under control.

The Teal Cats are really cute, and they’re upcycled from thrift-store finds that were donated to the cause. The current campaign will only last until the current batch of Teal Cats is all gone! When the ceramic kitty supply has been replenished, a new campaign to support a group in a different city will start up.

Check out the Teal Cat Project website, poke around a bit, and, if you’re able, buy a Teal Cat! There’s even an option to donate a bit of money without buying a tchotchke (or if you want to give a little extra). This is a great way to support a great kitty rescue group, and I hope you’ll consider chipping in.

You can follow the Teal Cat Project on Twitter and Facebook, too! Anything you can do to help spread the word is greatly appreciated. Meow!

I’m working on an awesome freelance project—which you’ll get to see very soon!—at home for the next few days, and that means I’m camped out on the sofa with an iced coffee (and a couple of cute puppies) at my side. Here are the four views I have from my “desk”. I like the last one best, of course.

Hey! Look what I got! Crazy, right? Thanks to all of the amazing comments on this post, I came to (at least) two conclusions: (1) iPhones are great, and (2) I should just go ahead and buy that planner.

I feel a little weird about the iPhone, honestly. I was very late in even owning a regular cell phone, and phones in general make me uneasy. I find it hard to have verbal conversations with people when I can’t see their faces or get a read of their body language. I also really don’t want to fall into a “gadget cycle”—you know, where you start feeling like the thing you own is obsolete and you’re behind the times so you’d better throw your thing in the landfill and buy a newer, better thing. You know I love me some Apple goods, but our friend Stevie J (yeah, he lets me call him that) is really good at releasing NEWER! BETTER! FASTER! products at just the right pace that you never really feel like you’re caught up. I already feel like that about my desktop computers, my laptop, and my MP3 player. Do I really need to feel like that about my phone, too?

Apparently, the answer is now a resounding yes. I love my new white iPhone! I still kinda feel like a 3-year-old trying to handle chubby crayons, but it’s great. (And yes, of course I joined Instagram. You can find me under an unexpected username…doorsixteen.) I’m particularly excited about having constant access to maps, since I have the sense of direction of a dizzy earthworm (head for the light!).

And the planner! I’m doing this! Yes! Okay, so I just got it on Friday, but the first thing I did was write down my plans for the night—dinner and an Echo & the Bunnymen concert* (yes, they were awesome) with Jenna. And then I did both things, so it must be working already! Plans! In a planner! With dates!

No, seriously. I’m excited about this. Tonight before I go to bed I’m going to make some loose notes for things I need to do this week and appointments I have to remember. Then I’m going to put the planner in my bag (with a pen!), and remember to look at it tomorrow. And the next day. Because that’s how it works, right?

*EDIT: Want to know how the Bunnymen concert was? Jenna wrote a funny synopsis that says it better than I could!

I know, I know…posts here are few and far between. I wish that weren’t the case, but lately life has been busy. And yeah, I keep saying that, but it’s true. I know there are plenty of people (like, say, people with kids or President Obama, for example) who are busier than I am, but I guess they’re all just better at handling it. I am really bad with budgeting my time, and I’m one of those weird procrastinators who manages to mentally rearrange priorities in a way that neglects the stuff that actually matters and has a deadline attached to it but make me feel like it’s super important that I rearrange my canned goods RIGHT NOW OR ELSE.

I other words, I’m ridiculous.

I need to figure all of this out. I want to learn how to plan a schedule and get organized. I want to know how to use a calendar. I don’t want to always be feeling like nothing is done and that I have a million obligations looming over my head. For whatever reason, I wound up with one of those brains that needs to physically write something down with a pen on paper before I can remember it. Taking notes on a computer (I don’t own a smart phone) doesn’t work—I need to actually make the words with my hand in order for them to connect with my brain, it seems.

I really like these Tomorrow Planners from Poketo. I’ve kind of decided that if I buy one, it will change my life. I haven’t bought one yet, though. Maybe I’m afraid it won’t work. Or maybe I’m just horrified by the shipping fee. Whatever it is that’s stopping me, I’m still writing everything down on Post-It notes and the backs of receipts.

This is the least cohesive post I’ve ever written, but also one of the most honest. I’m not the get-it girl you think I am, you know. I’m kind of a mess.

My fellow write-it-downers: How do you keep track? Do you have a magical notebook? A special pen? Extra coffee? How can I make this happen? Help.

Jen McCabe from Honey Kennedy is fancy. Like, really fancy. She’s girly and frilly and loves vintage nautical imagery, and she needed a blog design to reflect those sensibilities while still providing a clean, orderly environment in which to share the work all of the wonderful designers, photographers, and other prettymakers she regularly features on her site. Jen seems to know about stuff before everyone else—her blog is so well-curated (if you’re not reading it already, you should be!), and I couldn’t be happier that she now has a site design that suits her.

Working with Jen was a joy. She really knows her personal style and has the same eye for detail that I do, and there’s nothing more rewarding than helping someone to turn their vision into a reality. I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s true.

My friend Ticara recently returned to blogging at Agonyclite after taking a few months off, and she wanted a new look to go with her fresh start. Ticara’s blog tends to be on the personal side, and she didn’t want a bunch of bells and whistles—she really just needed a basic blog design that complements her style. I decided to go really bold with her logo because the word “Agonyclite” is pretty compelling (I kept reading it as “agony lite”—which is kind of hilarious, but no, here’s the real definition), but I tried to keep it looking fun and feminine, too…just like Ticara.

Thanks, Jen and Ticara, for trusting me with your blog redesigns!

I was supposed to take this entire week off from work, but things didn’t really pan out that way…so I’m just off for one day instead. I’m spending today with Fritz and Bruno, eating popcorn with malt salt, getting some freelance work* taken care of, and hopefully going for a long walk in Fort Tryon park, provided I can convince F&B that it’s not all that cold outside.

Following a tip from Nubby Twiglet, I picked up a bottle of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri nail polish in Mint Sprint. It’s a little more blue-green than it looks in the photo—very springy and bright! I did my fingernails, too, but my hands are bad models.

*Yes, it still counts as a “day off” if I’m doing freelance work. At least for now it does. And yes, I’m actively looking for more freelance work, so if you need your blog redesigned or a snappy cover for your book, I’m your girl.

CBS News Sunday Morning did a very nice segment yesterday about book covers, including insight into the design/marketing process, some talk about the impact of eBooks on cover design, and commentary from Peter Mendelsund and Chip Kidd. I wish they’d gone a little deeper into exactly how the design process might change when eBooks increase in popularity, but I suppose that’s a discussion for another audience.

Thanks to everyone who emailed and tweeted the link to me—I wouldn’t have seen the segment otherwise. It was fun to see a couple of my covers on screen (if only for a second or two!), as well as the work of several of my colleagues.

If you’re interested in this stuff, see also:
→ Is Your E-Book Reading Up On You? (All Things Considered/NPR)
→ End Of Days For Bookstores? Not If They Can Help It (Morning Edition/NPR)

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!)

I love hearing about what people do for a living; about the ways their jobs function and how they started doing what they do in the first place. I always feel a little embarrassed and even kind of shy when I’m asked what I do (I design books), because as much as I love my job, it’s hard for me to image anyone else being interested in hearing about it.

Much to my constant amazement, though, people are really interested in book cover design! I get so many emails and comments asking me about how it all works, so I thought it might be nice to try to answer as many of those questions as possible all in one place.

Go for it: Ask me anything you ever wanted to know about being a book cover designer. It would be extra-cool if you also told me what you do to bring home the biscuits, too . . . even if you don’t have a question!

Keep in mind that I work in-house (not freelance) for a publishing company, so I can’t answer questions about self-employment and that kind of thing.

I’ll answer all of start answering your questions on Wednesday!

EDIT: I had to close the comments, sorry. I never expected to get SO many questions—it’s going to take me days and days to get through them all! I’ll do my best to answer everything.

This is my mouse path for today, from 10:00am until 5:30pm. The lines are movement, and the dots are periods of inactivity. (The bigger the dot, the longer the rest.)

Makes a very busy day look beautiful, doesn’t it?

ETA: The application appears to have been created by Anatoly Zenkov. You find more information and links to download the app here.

I finally put together a little portfolio site for some of my book covers.

See these piles of manuscripts? They are a pretty good representation of the number of unresolved, undesigned, book covers I’m working on right now. Three times a year, there’s a big crunch as we get our covers ready for the next seasonal catalog (summer 2009 is being designed right now). It’s kind of an awful feeling for a couple of weeks, and then there’s a (brief) period of relief before everything comes back with requests for changes and reworking.

A couple of my titles are giving me grief right now—things I thought would come together quickly, but somehow nothing looks right. That tends to happen more with the books I enjoyed during the reading stage of the process. I’m always amazed when the comps finally DO start flowing—where were all those ideas before, and why didn’t they come to me sooner?

Yeah, it’s coming home with me this weekend. (And no, I don’t have Monday off!)

I finally got a new camera. Here I am in the bathroom at work (always my favorite place for self-portraits—the lighting is perfectly depressing/clinical, and there are those great Mart Stam chairs in the entryway) upon arrival this morning. So far, I like it. I’m not a very good photographer and I don’t have patience for adjusting settings, etc., so I need all of the automated help I can get. I’m also excited to have a wide-angle lens for taking photos inside the house!

The temperature outside is rapidly dropping. I’ve been wearing my new Wrist Worms from Sandra. Love them! I know fall is going to pass too quickly, and soon it will be colder than cold. I’ll try to savor my favorite season every day in the mean time.