COVER STUDY // The Quilter's Field Guide to Color

Book covers are an author’s most important marketing tool. No matter how many ads they place or how much exposure on Amazon the book gets, when a person picks up the book, the cover has a lot of work to do.

I read somewhere* that on average a design gets 2 seconds of a viewer’s attention. 2 SECONDS to grab a viewer’s attention, communicate what the content of the book is and get the viewer to decide to buy the book. That’s a lot going on in 2 seconds!

*While ‘somewhere’ isn’t exactly siting my sources, I’m hoping you’ll trust me on this one.

So it’s probably no surprise that the cover design and review process is an intense one. The creative process begins with discussions around the number one takeaway of the book, the overall style of the project and who the audience is. Knowing who we are targeting and how the book is going to be used is often the most important factor. We then discuss the photography, source locations and brainstorm props. The layout concepts are discussed and the photos are shot with the design in mind.

Sometimes the right concept just reveals itself early in the process and we are able to plan, source, shoot, design and get approval. No sweat. Well…some sweat, but not an over-the-top amount of sweat.

And sometimes, we plan, source, shoot, design and really like what we’ve got buuuuut, something just doesn’t feel right. That was the case with The Quilter’s Field Guide to Color by Rachel Hauser for Lucky Spool.

This is where we started with the book design: Showing a gorgeous space with a quilt that looked like it was made specifically for that room color-wise. Subtly showing readers how using the tools in this field guide could help them make the perfect quilt for their space.

Pretty, right? But while we agreed that it was nice styling and a nice photo, the gist of the book wasn’t being communicated. Nowhere on here would people understand the incredible resource that was inside waiting for them! This is a field guide, a workbook, a hands-on experimental tome of information! This pretty photo isn’t hardworking enough for this book.

So after more discussion and direction from the publisher and author, we styled an eye-catching in-process shot that communicated HOW this book actually works. The image the team ended up publishing actually shows readers what’s inside the book waiting for them and indicates that this isn’t just another pretty book—this book will get used and referenced for years to come.

These two covers take up the same amount of space and are given the same amount of time from the viewer. By using the cover as a marketing tool, Rachel was able to communicate the concept of her book to potential readers in 2 seconds.

Happy designing!
+ Kristy

Project: The Quilter’s Field Guide to Color
Author: Rachel Hauser
Publisher: Lucky Spool
Book Design + Photography: Page + Pixel
Additional Photography: Rachel Hauser

Don't Overlook the Door Knobs

When sourcing locations, I’m not just looking for great light—which, let’s be clear, light is numero uno—but coming up in a close second are the details. Moulding, interesting wallpaper, great linens, expensive pillows (cheap pillows are zero fun to style), perfectly worn wood floors, window seats and door knobs. Door knobs??

Yeah, door knobs.

Because this shot would not have been the same without that adorable brass door knob mimicking the circles in Alyce’s quilt. Yay, details!

+ Kristy

Project: Mini Masterpieces
Author: Alyce Blyth
Publisher: Lucky Spool
Book Design + Photography: Page + Pixel

RECENT WORK: Patchwork Lab: Gemology

Publishing books is a sneaky business. By the time the book is released and ready to sell, the book team will have already spent nearly a year working on the project! That’s a whole year of working on something super-cool and not being able to share what I’m working on. That may explain the blog posts coming in fits and spurts—or maybe it’s because I get distracted and forget about posting. I am a xenial, afterall: half-analog/half-digital. That said, a really fun book has just reached the hands of the author, so I get to be digital today ;)

Patchwork Lab: Gemology by Andra Tsang Jackson for Lucky Spool was a pleasure to design. Her graphic paper-pieced gemstones and beautiful color sense give this book a sophistication that graphic designers like me dream of working with.

+
Kristy

Project: Patchwork Lab: Gemology
Author: Andrea Tsang Jackson
Publisher: Lucky Spool
Book Design: Page + Pixel
Photography: Holly DeGroot

FBF // Work it, Wendy!

It’s not everyday that we source a shoot location that comes equipped with the perfect puppy-model. And believe me when I say that when we do, we get a model release form signed and we put that puppy in a book!

Wendy was the sweetest and added the perfect touch of hominess to Alyce Blyth’s beginner sampler book, Mini Masterpieces, for Lucky Spool.

+
Kristy

OTP // Mini Masterpieces

A few weeks ago, Mini Masterpieces by Alyce Blythe for Lucky Spool was sent off-to-print. What a fun book to work on! The quilts on this book cover are not photoshopped together, they are the actual quilts hung on a wall. Aren’t they great? They really are minis.

Designing and photographing a cover this way appears like it should be pretty quick and simple (Spoiler: the more simple the layout, the more challenging it was to put together). There were endless configurations that we could place these quilts in, it seriously began feeling like a giant game of tetris! Playing with the shapes and balancing the color, considering where the title would be placed and which quilts worked best together…I’m kicking myself for not recording a time lapse of this set up.

Composing the image while keeping the text in mind is my favorite way to design. I suppose it’s a good thing that I know a great photographer.

+
Kristy

Project: Mini Masterpieces
Author: Alyce Blythe
Publisher: Lucky Spool
Book Design + Photography: Page + Pixel

Prop Collection

It was a Saturday morning and I was rushing around the house attempting to check off my to-do list: Laundry. Give the kitten his medicine. Return the library books.

Rounding the corner to head downstairs I was stopped in my tracks by this scene:

I had recently played Tetris with some of my beloved objects and moved them around the house to give them new life and it worked! I actually stood and smiled for a few seconds, admiring each individual object and remembering the stories behind each of them.

None of the objects are new, the most recent acquisition is the ceramic coffee mug that I bought as a Christmas gift to myself 3 years ago. The rest of the treasures vary in age and importance.

The framed and painted Paul Klee print was a $1 thrift shop score from my college days in Green Bay, WI and the little beaded rhino was a gift from our South African neighbor. The purple monkey head (that opens and holds a lighter for our sage bundle) was found at my favorite local thrift shop while the flower pot was dug out of the trash in my college ceramics studio.

I have a habit of sticking photos into the inside edges of frames because I’m running out of wall space and I refuse to not be surrounded by family images. The photo of Piper is special to me, she is wearing the tutu my dear friend, Beate, sent her from Denmark for Christmas and Teagan stands proudly in front of her room as a family friend takes her photo at our early-morning in-home photo shoot. I regret the time candle wax dripped down the handsome bookcase my grandpa made when he attended Milwaukee Tech high school and it appears that I need to dust the leaves of my (thriving!!!) orchid.

At one point I had kept Marie Kondo’s book The Magical Art of Tidying Up on top of this bookcase along with The Perfectly Imperfect Home. I thought seeing the book that encourages us to minimize would be inspirational to me but I found that it stressed me out when I saw it. Marie’s book, while very motivating to me at times, didn’t make sense up there with my collection of misfit objects.

As a stylist and an artist, I sometimes feel like a hoarder. It is a fine line between collecting and consuming and it is a constant practice for me. I love the idea of a minimal home, I imagine the calmness that comes with a sparse space is tangible. But as hard as I try, I can’t seem to pass up the purple monkey-head boxes. Maybe in another life…but for now, my collection makes me happy.

+
Kristy