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How a Book Cover Gets Designed

2021-03-16 · announcement · John · 3:44 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing · mode: Announcements · tags: self promotion

John reveals the cover of The Anthropocene Reviewed book and explains how his covers come about: a fraught moment for authors, conversations with his editor Julie Strauss-Gabel, and designer Grace Han, whose interweaving paths of sunset color express the book's ideas of perspective and shared paths.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Two major developments; how book covers happen for John's books and why cover design is fraught for authors

  • ★★★ John announces that The Anthropocene Reviewed book has a cover, which he shows, and that he will talk about how book covers happen for his books. — 00:00:00 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (book)
  • ★★ The Anthropocene Reviewed is John's sixth book, but with reprints and foreign editions he has had over a hundred covers, some he disliked and some he adores. — 00:00:00 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (book)
  • ★ Some of John's covers are wondrous in their strangeness, like the Swedish cover of Turtles All the Way Down. (playful) — 00:00:00 · Turtles All the Way Down
  • ★★★ John says cover design is often fraught and complex for authors: the cover is the first part of the book readers see and often the first artistic response to the book. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ The cover comes when John feels exceptionally exposed and nervous; the cover designer is often the first person he doesn't know to read the book. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John says some authors have almost complete control over their covers while others have little to no say. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John has always had a voice in his US covers thanks to Julie Strauss-Gabel, his editor since his first book was published 16 years ago. — 00:00:29 · Julie Strauss-Gabel

00:00:58 — The Anthropocene Reviewed cover: talks with Julie Strauss-Gabel, Grace Han's design, Albers' color studies, Grace's account of her concept, the reveal

  • ★★ The cover began with John and Julie talking about Hiroyuki Doi's artwork, John's circle drawings, road trips, microorganisms, the Bonneville Salt Flats, sunsets and their favorite book designers. — 00:00:58 · Julie Strauss-Gabel
  • ★★ Covers now must work as physical objects and as two-inch thumbnails; John loves Grace Han's designs as bold and legible yet human, even vulnerable, as he wants the book to be. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Julie asked Grace, who read the book and developed a few possible covers; John was immediately drawn to one showing interweaving bands of color. — 00:01:27 · Julie Strauss-Gabel
  • ★★ The design reminded John of Josef Albers' color studies, where perceived color changes with neighboring colors: two browns he shows look different but are the same brown. — 00:01:27
  • ★★★ Grace's paths of shifting color felt to John like a visual expression of the book's subject: how perspective shapes so-called reality and how forces shape the paths we share. — 00:01:56 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (book)
  • ★★ Grace Han (quoted): Grace, quoted by John, says she brainstorms while thinking of someone who would most need the book; for this book she was that someone, having lost a close friend and growing cynical in the pandemic. — 00:01:56 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (book)
  • ★★ Grace Han (quoted): Grace says the introduction's pathways and labyrinths and the sunsets essay, urging her to take off her armor of cynicism, led to intertwining paths lit by sunset colors. — 00:02:26
  • ★★★ John says Grace's cover is beautiful and sincere without being maudlin, rendering the sunset as he hopes his essay does and saying much about what he hopes the book will be. — 00:02:59
  • ★★ John never really knows what he wants his covers to look like; he is lucky to publish at all, let alone have brilliant designers respond to his work. — 00:02:59

00:03:24 — Thanks to Grace Han, release date and pre-order, sign-off and the second development (a haircut, per the description)

  • ★★ When John saw this cover he immediately recognized it as the cover of the book, which then became real to him; he thanks Grace Han. — 00:03:24
  • ★★★ The Anthropocene Reviewed book comes out on May 18 and is available for pre-order now. — 00:03:24 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (book)

In the description and comments

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Book cover · Grace Han · The Anthropocene Reviewed (book)

Also: Bonneville Salt Flats · cynicism · Hiroyuki Doi · Josef Albers · Julie Strauss-Gabel · sunset · Sweden · Turtles All the Way Down

Only in the description or credits: the Puff

Also centred on Book cover: The Best (Recent) Book Covers Including MINE! · My First Novel in Nine Years Has a Cover

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