Saturday, June 24, 2023

Book Cover Design Part 4: a new edition

*This is the 4th installment of a series. Here's Part 1Part 2, and Part 3.

Have you ever come up with an idea for a project years after completing it and wondered why it didn't come to you sooner? That's what happened to me with this redesigned concept for my book cover for A Bitter Pill to Swallow. I can't even blame it on not getting any feedback from other people. In 2015 I showed my penultimate drafts to a friend who's a professional graphic designer and not 1 but 2 art critique groups. Not until this year did I realize that there was a good way to put all my cover design elements on a single cover. If you recall, my original design involved 4 variant covers.

Let's go back to where it all started, a simple sketch I made while on my lunch break:



I had considered combining all 4 panels into a single book cover, kind of like this:




But there was one problem: the character in the bottom left panel. His presence on the cover would be a spoiler, kind of like if Bruno appeared front and center on the poster for Encanto. I guess that's why I never pursued that concept early on. Instead, I decided to give each character their own variant cover with the pills in the background for branding, in addition to a cover design only featuring pills. 

 
But even after all that work, I knew as an artist that there was no one right answer, just a myriad of other ways I could illustrate my covers, and that inspiration could strike at any time. The thought of reconfiguring my cover occurred to me once again when I had to put out a new edition earlier this year after increased paper prices and changes at a major book distributor left me with no choice. That design is basically the same as the old cover, with the addition of my award sticker. Just the act of opening up the file to make those small updates got me thinking about what else I could do. I knew I could do more,  but at the same time, I wasn't in the mood to come up with an entirely new concept. Why not use what I already made instead of reinventing the wheel?

After months of tinkering, this is what I came up with:


 

 
I'm so pleased to have 3 of my main characters together on the cover and still have the space for my award sticker and a quote from a blurb by a well-known author. I call this version the anniversary edition and am making my big announcement about it today because June 24th, 1993 was the day I began writing the short story that would grow into my novel. It certainly has come a long way from its humble beginnings in purple ink inside a 14-year-old girl's pink notebook.





This new edition is available online and through special order though most bookstores. The ISBN is 9798211153196. If you've read A Bitter Pill to Swallow and liked it, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could take a little time to rate it on IndieBoundBarnes & NobleApple Books Google Play StoreAmazon, or Goodreads if you haven't done so already. And if you haven't read it, I hope that the new cover might get you interested.




Saturday, June 17, 2023

The 2023 Gold Coast Art Fair


 

This year's Gold Coast Art Fair in Grant Park is full of talented artists and I'm excited to share their work on my blog. Here are my favorites:

 

CalligraphArt by Sarah Kayode

Scarlett Solomon


Vandana Jain


Streeterval Art


Hamaila


Dan Gardiner


Anne Byrd


Yves Goyatton

Stuffed Brain Studio


Murray Henderson Art


Isabelle Gougenheim Designs


Jay Kim


Studio G7

The show continues tomorrow until 5 p.m. It's definitely worth visiting if you want to get beautiful work from amazing artists.



Thursday, June 15, 2023

NeoCon 2023

 


In all the years I've been attending NeoCon at the Merchandise Mart, I've learned that change is the only constant. Exhibitors that seem to have a perennial presence stop showing up and new ones emerge to take their place. Companies merge or go out of business. And of course trends are always changing.

Change has been inevitable in the past few years. It's been interesting to see the changes that organizations have made juxtaposed with the areas in which they stubbornly remain the same. I am referring, once again, to the current trend I most despise: pretending that the pandemic is over and everything's "normal" again.


 

This is the way things are done nowadays, I suppose. No masks, just vibes. We are expected to live in a polite state of denial. I thought design was supposed to be about problem-solving, but how can you solve a problem when you pretend it doesn't exist? Anyway, that's a topic for another blog post. I wore both a mask and a face shield when I stopped by on Tuesday because of the approximate 99% masklessness of the crowds around me.

 

 

It was worth masking up and braving the crowds because I saw a lot of beautiful things. This year, my favorite new product was this concept from Sisyphus Industries.

 

You have to see this table in person to believe it. It's the perfect gift for someone who has everything. It would be a calming presence in a medical waiting room or a meditative focal point in a spa.

Akustus had my favorite booth this year. I love the way they took a mundane, utilitarian product like acoustic panels and made a bold statement with it.

Here are some other things that caught my eye:

 





Interior Design magazine's space


Camira and Luna Textiles

Andreu World


BNF Studio

Arrmet

elementAl samples from Swatchbox.com


Gold Leaf Design Group

SitOnIt Seating

F. Schumacher & Co.
Scandinavian Spaces








Fabricut

Kravet

Sanderson

Christian Lacroix in Osborne & Little Showroom

Scalamandré


The Bright Group


Samuel & Sons

Source International


Artistic Tile

deAurora

Ebanista

Sixinch

Falcon


Mayer Fabrics



KI

Furniturelab


Arcadia

Shaw Contract


CF Stinson



Ethnicraft

Steelcase

Designtex

Dauphin Group

RGS Furniture

Sekisui
Patcraft



Global Furniture Group

Wonderwall Studios


Slalom



ERG International



Krug

These were my favorite floral arrangements at NeoCon this year:






 

To see the rest of the photos that I took this year and full-size versions of the ones in this blog post, take a look at my Flickr album.

As usual, spending time immersed in interior design has made me eager to get started on some new projects, and I'm curious to see what changes next year's NeoCon show will bring.