Austin Book Signing Event

Recently I had the pleasure of traveling to Austin, Texas to join my dear friend, Jess Archer, at her first book signing event.  She wrote a book and I designed the cover which has been such a fun collaboration!

After she picked me up from the airport, our first stop was Regents School of Austin.  She was scheduled to do a book talk with the high school book club that day.  It was so great to hear her talk about her book and learn about what goes into the writing and publishing process.  Jess really emphasized that writing a book is not as glamorous as they might think, and that the writing process is to be done in private if you want to be true to your personal voice.  They were very enlightened and had a lot of good questions for her.

The books were available for purchase at the book talk as well.  I just love her set up with the vintage briefcase and cake stand!

The night we had been waiting for on March 4th had arrived and we set up a cozy nook in the local Austin Stauthaus Coffee Pub.  The turn out was more than amazing. There was a constant stream of people the whole night and she sold over 100 books within a few hours!  

It was such an honor to be a part of this event with her and I was so proud of Jess and all that she did to get to this point!  A memory that I will never forget!

I have read the book, and I just LOVED it!!  To get your copy, click HERE (and type Jess Archer in the search bar) or order one through Amazon.  To read more about Jess Archer, go to www.writerjessarcher.com

"Finding Home with the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Billy Graham": Book by Jess Archer, Cover by Moi

In the fall of 2014, my dear friend Jess proposed that I design the book cover for a book that she was writing.  After several years of writing this book, she finally completed a manuscript that was destined to be.  Her life story was now a memoir in the pages of a book, telling the story of a girl growing up within the Billy Graham Association. Her father was the director of all the Billy Graham crusades and moving all over the world left her with some amazing memories but also her quest for "home".  

I had never designed a book cover before, so my first item of business was to ask Jess a million questions.  "What was the feel you wanted for the book?"  "Did you want to conjure up a certain emotion?"  "What were to be the subjects?"  "Preference on color palette?" Etc., etc. After gathering all the information together I began.  I painted a young girl leaving a town with a solemn face.  Gritty environment, pops of color found in the symbolic bumper stickers, a little reflection of waving hands.  Each detail important to the cover as a whole. 

After I completed this cover, the consensus was that by having a girl on the cover it might narrow the audience.  It was important to make the book appealing to both man and woman, because it is a book that everyone can appreciate.  So with that, we decided it would be best to make another cover.

I kept the second cover gender neutral with the van being the only subject.  This particular van was significant to Jess because this was the kind of van that their family drove through these particular years covered in the book.  I decided to include maps from some of the places that she lived in the clouds and bumper.  This cover went through lots of changes.  It was a challenge to create a cover that was kind of solemn but kind of hopeful at the same time.  The sky changed colors a lot of times, the clouds went from rainy to not so rainy, solid road to a road that showed movement... all things that help portray the feeling that she wanted in the book.  Art is such a process, and when I do work for others it is sometimes more challenging because I don't have the vision in my head to use for reference.  I am simply going off of another persons words.

We came across another challenge along the way.  I used the famous Beatles logo with the drop down "T" which was a definite "no no".  I wasn't even thinking that using this bumper sticker would be a copyright issue, but it indeed was.  It took so many hours to find the contact information we needed to get permission.  After all the time searching, our contact said that we could not use it.  I definitely learned my lesson through this experience. Just when I thought I was done with the cover, I was not!  I had to make another, more generic, Beatles bumper sticker.   One of the last finishing touches was the license plate. It is actually a photo of an actual license plate that was used on their van and it has great symbolism in the book.  

Now we come to the end of this book cover journey, and this is where the funny part happens!  I had this canvas professionally photographed and the photographer pinned it up on a black background and said, "lets just get the canvas edges in here incase they want to use that material on the spine of the book or something."  When I designed the layout of the painting, I left room in the sky for the title and room on the road on the bottom for her name.  All that changed the day that Jess got the preview of the book jacket sent to her email.  The graphics designer who did the layout of the jacket included the entire photograph of the canvas with the border and raw edges! He definitely had a different vision in his head than we did!  When I opened my email, Jess called me and we laughed on the phone together as I tried to process what had just happened.  I had envisioned it looking so different, but it turns out I actually think this was a better design!  The black really makes the painting pop which will make the book more eye-catching on the shelves.  I love the way it feels like it could be a page out of her journal or something which relates with it being a memoir.  Note the way that the canvas is slightly crooked and how the edges of my paint and pencils are spilling over onto the border.  These things give it more of an earthy, organic, authentic, and slightly imperfect feel which is what Jess was going for anyway!  Seeing it for the first time made me feel vulnerable.  I felt so exposed with my imperfect edges, etc.  I can be a perfectionist when it comes to details but I had to set that aside with a dose of humility and agree that this was the better design!

Art is always a journey.  Continue with me on this journey and pick up your copy of "Finding Home with the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Billy Graham" in just a few weeks!  Its going to be quite a ride...  

To follow the latest happenings with Jess and to read some more of her writing visit her website at:

http://writerjessarcher.com

This video is a glimpse into the book and Jess' life.  It was created for a crowd funding campaign but is a personal interview with Jess that you won't want to miss!

"Wistful Wanderings"

A few months ago I was asked by Jess Archer, my amazing writer friend (who I designed the quill logo for and was featured in a previous blog post) to design a book cover for a book that she wrote.  Here is the book cover and also an interview with Jess Archer herself.  More about Jess can be found on www.writerjessarcher.com.

When did you start writing your book and when did you finish?

I first started writing this book almost 7 years ago, but I'm not sure you can say it took me 7 years to write it because during those 7 years we were also starting a family, so there were many months when I couldn't even work on the book. 

When did you know you wanted to write it?

This may sound odd, but in some ways I've always known I would write the story of how I grew up. (That is, growing up with Billy Graham as my father's boss, moving every year and longing for a sense of "home." )  Even as a young girl I remember thinking, one day I will write about what it feels like to be the "new kid in town."  And that's what I did in this book.  So in that way it was extremely fulfilling just to tell the story, to really tell my story in a full-length book format. It was fulfilling like lugging around all the ingredients to make a cake and then to finally after so many years, actually create the beautiful cake with all the tools you've accumulated.

What was the inspiration behind your book?

I'll speak to the title of the book to answer this question.  The title of my book is, Finding Home with The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Billy Graham.  Hopefully people see that title and think, What in the world do those three big names have to do with each other or with a sense of "home"?  That's just what I want people to wonder about!  The answer to that question lies in my father's dramatic conversion to Christianity.  After he became a Christian, my dad changed his habits, his language and his heart toward people.  But he held onto his favorite music-- The Beatles and Bob Dylan.  On our long car rides between moves with Billy Graham, we listened to these musical icons. It was the only music Dad let us play on the cassette tape deck!  The voices of childhood.  The music of the Beatles and Bob Dylan. The spiritual direction of Billy Graham.  These three forces of influence stayed with me through a very transitory childhood.

 What do you hope to accomplish through this book?

I hope people wrestle with their own ideas about the meaning of "home."  I hope people turn to God, The Father and ask Him, how can I make sure I get home to be with you?

What was the biggest challenge in writing this book?

Carving out space and time with children under foot!

What was the best thing that you experienced through writing this book?

I've never run a real race, like a marathon or anything.  And I don't ever want to!  But I have always envied that scene when the runner cross the finish line.  That moment when he or she crosses over from pain and hard work into joy and victory.  The runner breaks down crying when her feet cross over the finish line because it was all so worth the sense of accomplishment.  In the privacy of my office I got to experience that incredible fulfillment of finishing the last line of my book.

When are you hoping it will get published?

Soon, very soon!  God willing!

What did you want to come across through the book cover?

Tara's piece that she created for the book art gives that feeling of wistful longing.  The girl on the front mirrors how I felt all those years traveling with The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.  I felt scared.  I felt alone. I felt deep longing for the comforts of a home.  I hope people see her piece and feel that same mood.