My guest today is Sherry Wachter, cover designer for The Corner Cafe, an anthology of short stories by 15 authors and an experimental project for BBT Cafe members.
The Blog Book Tour that started on June 1 is nearing an end. As an artist, the cover of a book is especially important to me. It can make or break a book sale. Because I've followed this book project from the beginning, I know a great deal of thought and consideration went into the creation of The Corner Cafe cover.
You
did a marvelous job creating the cover art for The Corner Café, Sherry. How did
you come up with your ideas? Can you share a little of the process of a book
cover artist from idea to finished product?
Probably every designer approaches book cover
design from a slightly different perspective. I sort of fell into design back
in the days when you could still do that. Before I became a designer I was a
writer and editor for marketing communications departments and firms. Very
often writers and designers can end up in a sort of tug-of-war over a piece--as
a general rule writers want to use the space for words; designers want to make
things beautiful, and as a breed, we tend to like lots of white space. Because
of my dual background I've always approached cover design as a unified
challenge--I need to create a cover that first, will sell the book, second,
reflects the content, style, and era of the story, and third, fits comfortably
with other similar books, but is eye-catching and appealing. Everything has to
work together. Designing covers for online marketing carries a special set of
challenges--for one thing, the cover must be simple and striking enough to be
recognizable at very small sizes, and very low resolutions. Those were the
general parameters.
When I design book covers I start out by listening,
and, if possible, reading some of the manuscript. I listen because often people
have a very clear idea of what they'd like to see, and if they don't see it
they will always feel a niggling dissatisfaction--or we'll end up doing round
after round of revisions. I am a designer. I know what's beautiful. I know what
my vision is for a book cover. But when I'm designing a cover for someone
else's book that has to be the central point from which I work--that this is
not my book. The person who has hired me to produce the cover is the one who
needs to be delighted. So--The Corner Cafe was not "my" book. Dani
was managing the project, so she was the person I talked to about her vision
for the cover. We started out with images--she provided a few photos, and we
talked colors, and what the cover needed to include. Then I came up with a few
options.
Here's where my designery sneakiness comes into
play. I never offer a client a single option. I start out by designing the
cover they tell me they want to see. No matter how bad I may think their idea
is, I do a cover that reflects what they tell me. I make sure that it won't
embarrass them--I balance things out, arrange their elements as pleasingly as I
can within their parameters, and I save it. Then I do a second option that is
based on their comments, but develops their ideas further, or explores other
type options, or another piece of art--something that I think will meet the
book's sales and marketing needs in a dynamic way. And then I develop a third
option that pushes things even farther--maybe it explores things like specialty
inks, or novelty (but appropriate fonts), or a visual pun or joke (if the
book's right for it). Basically, this cover just blows the doors off the
design.
Option 3: Instead of
trying to get a diner on the cover, we went with elements that suggest
"diner"--the coffee cup, the checkered pattern, the pie on a gingham
cloth, and the menu board, enlarged, and with the names set in a bolder font.
It works--it says "diner," but with enough subtlety to adapt itself
to the variety of diners in the book.
Sometimes the client chooses the fun design. Sometimes they stick with their vision. Sometimes they go for the mid-range design. Most often they pick and choose elements of each, and we come up with a cover that works for marketing, reflects the book, and pleases everybody (except possibly me--but it's not MY book, right?). My job is to give clients what they want--but it's also to show them that they can have far MORE than they are dreaming of.
Thank you so much, Sherry, for showing us how a cover evolves and how the cover for The Corner Cafe came about.
I'm excited to be a part of The Corner Cafe with my short story, "A Face in the Window".
There are Corner Cafes all over our country. Right now, I'll bet many of them have someone sitting at a back table typing away on a laptop or a notebook. There's a bit of a mystique to someone writing a book while sipping coffee in 
Those paintings inspired me to devise a story that crosses the ages between present day Jamaica and the days when the island was a British colony known for its sugarcane and rum. To add another exotic touch to this book, the final edits were made by telephone from the island of St. Martin--another fabulous destination where I hope to someday set a story.
Today is the launch date for The Corner Cafe, a book of short stories written by authors who are members of