First Second Books - Doodles and Dailies

Hiding Under the Covers (well, really "Jackets," but that doesn't make as good a blog title)

Fun Game for all you Design Dorks out there (a title I proudly wear like a Girl Scout badge I stapled on since I was way too Grrrl and lazy to sew)!

Pull out all of the jacketed books on your bookcase and one by one peek underneath. To make it even more interesting try to guess whether there will be anything hiding—be it art, a subtle emboss, some foil, or a water stain from that time you fell asleep reading it in the bathtub (NOTE: that last one doesn't count...and seriously if the book was that boring why do you still own it?) Guessing is like calling the eight ball for people who's coordination lies more in kerning than in cues. You'll be surprised which ones have little hidden gems. Surely that $50 collector's edition you scrapped up enough money for at the very end of a convention will, right? NOPE! But winds up that cheesy Phyllis Diller book someone bought you as a joke is hiding a gorgeous embossed green foil design. Who woulda guessed it? They say you can't judge a book by its cover but this seems to prove you can't judge a case by its jacket either.

:01 doesn't often do jacketed hardcover books, preferring fancy french flaps and keeping the price of full color books a bit less "ak! I must now move to a cardboard box!," so when I see a beautiful case treatment I can't help but drool.

Here are some of my favorites hiding in my bookcases (click on the images for larger views):

THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS by Kenneth Grahame and Dick Cuffari. The cover image is um...weird to say the least. Weird in a way I utterly love. As we all know Mr. Toad gets carried away. Quite literally. Beautiful line-art of Toad slightly more sane underneath as he brushes his...hair?

If you have yet to see a Laura Vaccaro Seeger book in person and care anything at all about book design you MUST get to a bookstore or library right now. Seriously don't even finish this sentence. She is, without a doubt, the modern master of the concept book and a true genius when it comes to playing with interaction between jackets and cases. FIRST THE EGG (which was a stunning cover before all those awards it had to go and win—geez Laura!) is probably my favorite reveal of hers as the chicken and the egg swap places, while still sharing the same beautiful paint through a clever die-cut.

One I did guess right was that Istvan Banyai's THE OTHER SIDE would have something amazing on the other side. So many little touches of brilliance here, but my fav would have to be the back flap with the author facing the wrong way. Take off the jacket and see the author's face...plus all of the text from the outside backwards as if it bled right through.

Okay this is one you MUST click on to get the full effect. Jason Lutes and Nick Bertozzi's HOUDINI THE HANDCUFF KING has some stunning hidden artwork under that cover continuing where the front image left off and escaping once again.

At the risk of making this entry give WAR AND PEACE a run for its money here's a gallery of my other favorites. I'd love to hear what books you find on your bookcases that have gorgeous hidden art. Feel free to comment below or just friend us on flickr and post them there silently if you are feeling shy.

Texture Field Trip: The Making of the RESISTANCE, BOOK 1 Cover

I've always been a big fan of wrap-around covers. I have a habit that whenever I get a new book I always take off the cover and open it flat, look at the case, look at the spine...see it the way the designer did on screen, flaps out, all of the pieces together...a visual conversation of the whole package. 

When Leland Purvis sent along a thumbnail concept of this great art for RESISTANCE, BOOK 1 (a SPRING 10 book written by Carla Jablonski, with some pretty incredible art by Leland telling the story) our entire floor was buzzing over it. Playful, strong, and sets the tone of the series which chronicles the French Resistance during WWII and the children who got involved in the fight.

Realistic coloring wouldn't have made the cover as strong so I started to play around, inspired by the palette of the book which is a lot of beautiful blues and browns. I made over 20 until I had pushed myself too far. Got to the point of "world's ugliest color scheme" and then worked my way back. (You guys don't get to see THAT one, though I blame that fourth one down in the image on the left on me watching GHOST DAD earlier that week. NOTE TO OTHER DESIGNERS: Don't watch Bill Cosby movies and design at the same time. Listen to someone who learned the hard way.) After all the variations, I realized I had been on the right track in the beginning. Something quiet so a shock of red for the band would be impossible to ignore.

But it still felt too static and flat for a story with so much action, spying, running, disguises, and danger. It wasn't working, so I decided to add some texture. Sure I could have made fake bricks in photoshop or thrown a simple filter in, but what fun is that?! This was an excuse for a Texture Field Trip!

If you live in NYC and haven't yet become a wanderer, you're doing it wrong. I could argue it's the greatest place in the world for people watching...and texture hunting. A few hours of walking around NY and brooklyn and I had over 60 new textures on my camera. I'm a firm believer you should always have a camera on you, especially if you are a designer or tend to run into Hulk Hogan a lot. (I swear that guy is stalking me.) There's just something so beautiful about naturally aged architecture, broken concrete, bricks who have seen a lot of things...though if they could talk, I'm not sure I'd want to hear the stories. That first wall below was stunning close-up. The picture didn't do it any justice.



Can you spot the winner? Click on any for larger versions and feel free to use them, since it will give me an excuse to go on another Texture Field trip in the future. Though honestly...wouldn't you rather go hunting yourself? There's a lot of beauty if you look around you a bit and everything can be a texture if you use it right.



I didn't want the wall to look like a photograph in the end and I definitely didn't want it to overpower the art. I'm really happy with how it turned out and proud to have this as my second :01 design. Despite the fact I am constantly drooling over fonts, I've gotten really into hand-lettering lately. (Note if you are a fontophile and don't subscribe to these newsletters you are missing out.) But there's just something about hand-lettering that makes me connect more emotionally with a book. This is definitely not a light book. Sure there are funny and sweet moments, but it's dark, real, and inspirational. Creating the logo by hand made me feel connected with the kids in the story. My own attempt to say "take that" against the oppression France faced during the dark times of their Nazi occupation.

Translations of a Wordless Book

Back in the day when I used to work in a cubicle almost a FULL ten feet away (my previous job was for :01's parent company Roaring Brook) I had the pleasure of sitting right next to one of my favorite things. The Bookcase of First Second Foreign Editions—something I love so much I feel the need to capitalize all of the letters of the words to describe it.

It's fascinating to see which covers stay and which get switched. Which logos undergo font-overhauls and which countries seem to think all of the text of a book should be stuck on the outside of as well as the inside. My personal favorite was ROBO UND HUND, the German edition of Sara Varon's classic, ROBOT DREAMS. Rough translation: ROBOT AND DOG with their new subtitle "Wahre Freundschaft Rostet Nicht" a.k.a. "True Friendship Does Not Rust." I was so smitten that my favorite translation widget and I spent almost two hours in an attempt to order it from a German website. Two hours well spent.

What I loved most about the German edition, and later on the French edition, was that it had been completely translated...despite the fact most people consider ROBOT DREAMS to be a wordless story.



There is such beauty in the language of sound effects around the world. A "Gasp" becomes a startled German "Schluck" and a French "OOOH" of surprise. The "Shiver Shiver" of a snowman becomes "Bidder Bidder" in Berlin and "glagla glagla" in Grenoble. (Also can we stop and take a moment to appreciate that these are images of a snowman shivering. While he may be chilly, it warms my heart.)



There are a few more examples on the First Second Flickr page, Including translations of my favorite panel and the panel that kills me every time. Reading ROBOT DREAMS in any language always makes me cry. Bunnies can be so cruel!


(French, American, and German editions of ROBOT DREAMS, on top of a sneak peek of my messy desk and George O'Connor's ATHENA, my current design project.)

Victim or Vixen: Breaking the V-Blonde Pattern in Mystery Covers

Noticing patterns is a part of my job, so as I dove deep into research for my first :01 cover design, I couldn't help but notice the Mystery of the V-Blondes of Mystery.

The women on vintage and even contemporary mystery covers are, more often than not, busty blondes that generally fall into one or another simple category: Victim or Vixen. You'd think you'd be able to tell the V-Blondes apart by how scanitly dressed they are, but another pattern is that both types are often pretty disheveled in the clothing department. (Who knew ghosts and murderers loved fabric so much!) The true way to tell if they are a Victim or a Vixen is by their gaze. If they are looking directly at the reader they are a Vixen and are not to be trusted. They are the ones hiding knives in their shoes and poison in that cup of brandy. If they are looking away—namely at a ghost, creepy closed door, towards a dark alley or graveyard, or um... at their own hand (sorry that last one made me laugh too hard to not include it), they are a Victim. Their role is to be saved as the mystery is solved. And often not much more than that.



CAT BURGLAR BLACK was the first book I designed for :01. Whenever I start a new project I completely go overboard with research. This time it included pouring over old covers in all of the used bookstores I know, watching old mystery movies, and wading through the huge pools of mystery covers and posters so wonderfully cataloged on flickr by collectors. Two of my favorite flickr members let me use their scans in this post: THE WOMAN IN THE WOODS, whose photo stream is simply one of the best out there; and cover collector and artist MATTHEW KIRSCHT. I warn you, in case you have something important to do that doesn't involve designing a mystery cover, you can spend hours looking at their collections. I know I did.

What struck me most about the image Richard Sala drew for the CAT BURGLAR BLACK cover was how it played with this idea of the traditional mystery novel cover: the creepy unnatural glow of his gorgeous watercolor bleeds, a the beautiful girl as the focal point, eerily background and sinister landscape. But at the same time a quick glance made me realize four things. She is
1) not a blonde*
2) not a vixen
3) most certainly not a victim
4) alone—no skeletons, no men—just a girl who is about to have her own story. One she completely owns. K.'s stance is powerful. Her gaze isn't one of fear, but rather one of intelligence. She knows something we don't. And it's pretty hard to look at that image and not want to find out what it is.

*a white haired teenager? How bizarre!

I guess I should talk about the parts I actually designed and I could bore you with talk of foil and the ridiculous things I do when picking a style of it for a book cover: Walk into a room with lightbulbs; walk into a room with fluorescence; turn off the light and see if you can still read it; hold it at every possible angle a book could wind up on the shelf. Is it shiny enough? Is it too shiny? Too yellow? Too red? Why am I using foil for this? Am I accidentally writing the paragraph I just said I wouldn't? Why yes! Yes, I am!

I wanted the logo to be contemporary, to mimic the blue glow of the background and to be something else that K. was conquering. She stands above it and presses that G down into a defeated squiggle. (For those design-y folk who like to deconstruct things: if you ever need to make a box 4 lower case l's work wonderfully and sideways S's make great accents. Letters are just shapes, and often pretty beautiful ones.)

In my mystery binge, along with getting annoyed with all the pointy boobed bondes with tiny waists, I also learned of a designer/artist named Tom Adams. He was resonsible for reworking all of Agatha Christie's books in the 70's. Many of her previous covers had not only been overly narrative but were covered in V-blondes (more often Victims than Vixens, since, as I'm sure you know, Christie was a proper lady). Adams took these stories and gave them iconic and haunting covers, often with simple still lifes or collages, and when he did choose to include a blonde...or at least part of her hair, he broke the line of victim and vixen. The hair suggests she's in trouble, but her stare and faint smile in that picture says otherwise. The only way you'd know is to read the book. Which is exactly what it made me want to do.