I had the opportunity to design the cover and interiors for another professional writing student at my alma mater. Since designing your own book isn’t a requirement for this class, students often enlist the help of their art major friends. In my case, I offer to do the full cover and interiors at a discounted price for PCC students.
Book Design for “After the Fire”
At my alma mater, seniors studying Professional Writing must compile their best writing samples—including fiction, poetry, advertisements, and essays—and publish them in a physical portfolio at the end of the semester. Most PW majors enlist friends or hire out the design work so they can better focus on editing their pieces, and I’ve enjoyed doing a number of portfolios for the last few years. This was Emily Thompson’s final portfolio design. She wanted an artistic flair to the cover similar to my PCC Survival Guide book. Many of her portfolio pieces demonstrated themes of hope and revival from difficult or trying times in life, and she wanted to correlate that theme with the fireweed blossoms that grow up after devastating forest fires. For this reason, I decided to play with color clashing with monochromatic greys. I deliberately chose to make the edges of the book charred and ashy looking, but as the blossoms come into the foreground, I wanted them to become bright and colorful.
Cover Design for “The Last Line of Their Lives”
I’m happy to reveal my newest cover design for debut author Andrew D. Doan. This was a ton of fun to put together. When Andrew told me it was about an esteemed cemetery that the wealthy people of the town were *literally* dying to claim for their final resting place, I knew I was going to have a blast. Typically cemeteries are creepy and belong in horror novels—but this one? Let’s have the tombstones made of gold!!
Life Update: Post Graduation
The last year and a half has been a constant churning of life’s ocean waves when set on a giant spin cycle. Between COVID and finishing up my master’s degree, I barely have an internal clock or a solid sense of time (as if I had one in the first place). But now things are finally getting back to normal (well, as normal as post-graduation adult life can get), and therefore it’s probably worth giving a life update.
Cover Design for “Live the Impossible”
I had the privilege to design the cover for Jenny Smith’s new memoir, Live the Impossible, a book about her time in a wheelchair and how it’s made her into who she is today.