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TRUE BELIEVER -- JACKET IMAGE
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From: Brenda.Bowen at Simonandschuster.com <Brenda.Bowen>
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 10:12:35 -0400
There are many, many ideas to address in the recent postings about TRUE BELIEVER and MAKE LEMONADE. I'd like to remark on just a couple here.
One person asked about the jacket, and how decisions are made about the jacket image. As the editor of both ML and TB, it was my job to "package" the books. I worked with art directors to put covers on them, choose the type, choose the graphic element that appear as "part openers." On ML, the idea was to bring as little attention to the type as possible, so that the unusual line breaks would not be over-embellished by decorative type. You'll see that both books have very "plain" typefaces.
For a while we weren't even going to have folios (page numbers) at the bottom of the pages, but that seemed affected.
I wanted something to make ML look handsome, though, so we began to search around for a design element that would decorate the part openers. I don't know who came up with the idea of the messy handprint, but I do know that I went out to Brooklyn to get that handprint from Jinny's own grandson, Max, who is acknowledged at the front of the book.
In TB, we tried a rose, a fish, and some other ideas as part openers, and finally settled on the jacket image, that famous kiss (but which famous kiss?), in miniature.
It was I who believed we should not depict the characters on the covers, not Jinny. The characters are also not depicted on the paperback edition of ML, where Jolly (or is it LV?) is shown in silhouette.
On TRUE BELIEVER, the cover designer Russell Gordon came up with that arresting image of two people kissing (along with several others, which were extremely interesting, but not pursued). SPOILER ALERT: We refined the cover image so that the viewer could discern neither the race nor the *gender* of the two kissers on the cover. I love that jacket image because of its complexity and ambiguity. We pushed it, too, so that the two profiles would create that "vase" shape that we've all seen in optical illusion books. Not that the vase has any signficance, just that I wanted to stress that something can appear one way, and be another way.
And just quickly (sorry for this long post!) -- I think the opening lines of TB are so extraordinarily powerful. For those who read both as adults and as
"gatekeepers" for children (and for young readers themselves), try this interesting exercise: insert your own name and your own age into these lines:
My name is __________ and I am ___________.
When a little kid draws a picture it is all a big face and some arms stuck on. That's their life.
Well, then: You get older and you are a whole mess of things, new thoughts, sorry feelings, big plans, enormous doubts, going along hoping and getting disappointed, over and over again, no wonder I don't recognize my little crayon picture. It appears to be me and it is and it is not.
Brenda Bowen Simon & Schuster
Received on Wed 11 Jul 2001 09:12:35 AM CDT
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 10:12:35 -0400
There are many, many ideas to address in the recent postings about TRUE BELIEVER and MAKE LEMONADE. I'd like to remark on just a couple here.
One person asked about the jacket, and how decisions are made about the jacket image. As the editor of both ML and TB, it was my job to "package" the books. I worked with art directors to put covers on them, choose the type, choose the graphic element that appear as "part openers." On ML, the idea was to bring as little attention to the type as possible, so that the unusual line breaks would not be over-embellished by decorative type. You'll see that both books have very "plain" typefaces.
For a while we weren't even going to have folios (page numbers) at the bottom of the pages, but that seemed affected.
I wanted something to make ML look handsome, though, so we began to search around for a design element that would decorate the part openers. I don't know who came up with the idea of the messy handprint, but I do know that I went out to Brooklyn to get that handprint from Jinny's own grandson, Max, who is acknowledged at the front of the book.
In TB, we tried a rose, a fish, and some other ideas as part openers, and finally settled on the jacket image, that famous kiss (but which famous kiss?), in miniature.
It was I who believed we should not depict the characters on the covers, not Jinny. The characters are also not depicted on the paperback edition of ML, where Jolly (or is it LV?) is shown in silhouette.
On TRUE BELIEVER, the cover designer Russell Gordon came up with that arresting image of two people kissing (along with several others, which were extremely interesting, but not pursued). SPOILER ALERT: We refined the cover image so that the viewer could discern neither the race nor the *gender* of the two kissers on the cover. I love that jacket image because of its complexity and ambiguity. We pushed it, too, so that the two profiles would create that "vase" shape that we've all seen in optical illusion books. Not that the vase has any signficance, just that I wanted to stress that something can appear one way, and be another way.
And just quickly (sorry for this long post!) -- I think the opening lines of TB are so extraordinarily powerful. For those who read both as adults and as
"gatekeepers" for children (and for young readers themselves), try this interesting exercise: insert your own name and your own age into these lines:
My name is __________ and I am ___________.
When a little kid draws a picture it is all a big face and some arms stuck on. That's their life.
Well, then: You get older and you are a whole mess of things, new thoughts, sorry feelings, big plans, enormous doubts, going along hoping and getting disappointed, over and over again, no wonder I don't recognize my little crayon picture. It appears to be me and it is and it is not.
Brenda Bowen Simon & Schuster
Received on Wed 11 Jul 2001 09:12:35 AM CDT
