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.
Mockup Cover Designs for RED Trilogy
Eighteen-year-old River Ardis lives in a future where terrorists infiltrate the country as teenagers. She tries her best to keep her head down and away from the unrest until she meets a distraught girl from the 1990s. But little do either of them know, the oppressive government has been hunting the time traveler for years—and anyone associated with her. I began writing my time travel dystopian trilogy when I was fourteen, and it’s since undergone extensive edits for the past ten years. While I intend to pursue a traditional publishing house, which would be responsible for cover designs, I wanted to design my own cover and layout for a class project.