WMC Fest: Kern and Burn

This past weekend I volunteered as a photographer at WMC Fest 4. Last year, Weapons of Mass Creation motivated me to quit my job, leading me to a new life and career all the way across the country in Seattle. Needless to say, I headed to Cleveland last Thursday with pretty high expectations.

My expectations pretty much got thrown out the window before the end of the Friday night meet and greet.

This year was different, at least for me. It seemed more honest, more raw, more "hey, sometimes freelancing is hard and here's why. AND here's why we still do it and enjoy it." What I absolutely love about WMC is the intense community it creates. It's a space where it is safe to be that honest and open. A space to collaborate and share. A space to be inspired. (Cheesiness over now, I promise.)

So in the next week or so I'll be sharing a handful of posts about things I learned there, books I learned about and more.

Starting with Kern and Burn.

Tim Hoover and Jessica Karle Heltzel spoke on Saturday morning about their collaborative side project Kern and Burn. They created a book full of wonderful conversations with 30 leading designers. Kern and Burn: Conversations with Design Entrepreneurs is also just beautiful.

The book is completely two-toned and full of illustrations you'll be tempted to rip out and paste on the wall above your desk.

Tim and Jessica say about the designers they interviewed,

Our hope is that you can learn from them — not to follow in their footsteps, but to chart your own course in parallel, one that allows you to thrive, add value to the world and love what you do.

I meant to grab a copy of the book at the fest but time seriously just seemed to speed by and I only made it out of the gallery with a single purchase (I'm sure my wallet is pleased). Kern and Burn: Conversations with Design Entrepreneurs is available in both print ($30) and ebook ($15) form from their website.

And a small plea, don't buy this book on Amazon. For all their hard work, Tim and Jessica won't see enough cash back. Plus, their website is better looking than your Amazon shopping cart.

And a bonus lesson I took away from their talk:

A job is defined by others, versus a project, which is self-defined. Which means I need to start thinking of my work as a series of projects instead of one big job that seems suffocating. It also means I get to set the goals and the timeline. 

See also:
+ a few interviews with book cover designers
+ over a year later, I finally have one of these beautiful Storybook Posters framed on the wall above my desk. Peter & Wendy are keeping me motivated.

John Gall's new site

John Gall has launched a new portfolio site featuring his wonderful book covers and collage work. I've spoken about John before but wanted to take this new launch as an opportunity to share some of my favorite pieces of his work.

Plus, what book cover I loved exactly a year ago
& John Gall's Vladimir Nabokov covers

(all covers courtesy John Gall)

Read Much

Design studio Heads of State first caught my eye with their incredible posters, and their work has continued to amaze me since. But today I'm posting about the pennant they've designed for The People's Pennant, a small shop encouraging people to "show some team spirit for the small things in life."

 Here's the description from the shop, which I love:

"Read Much. Read Much? It's a statement and a question. We're bombarded by 140 characters on a retina displays, endless threads on behemoth desktop monitors, and our nightly overdose on the 54" LCD LED only to wake up and do it all over again. After all this noise the only thing I care to do is turn to a book. And no no, not a Kindle, hell no not a Nook, the tried and true paperback. Dog eared, broken spines and all. Read Much."

For more information, and/or to buy this for me, check out:
The People's Pennant    /   The Heads of State

(all images The People's Pennant) 

Adam Johnson and Ray Bradbury

I know I've been talking about my new job a lot and not so much about books but there really is something great about having a job you truly love. When you care about what you're creating more than you care about your recognition or payment for it, I think that really shows in your work.

Which is definitely the case for Adam Johnson, a Senior Designer at Harper Collins. Some of Johnson's most recent work is this series of Ray Bradbury covers.

On his blog, Adam writes:

I have a passion for working on his covers because quite frankly the majority out there have not been done well enough. They seem to often paint him in a whimsical or comical light and do not take him seriously enough, nor capturing the beauty of his writings.

I want to use my powers for good, so-to-speak. I am passionate about things that are meaningful and enriching to the soul, like I find him to be. There is so much smut, filth, and degrading writing done with beautiful covers that I hope he now has fair advantage. I’m hoping new readership will come to him and that he will be seen for what he really is—a national treasure, a bearer of light & truth, and an enormous literary figure.

There seems to be a general desire among many designers I've interviewed or read about to bring design justice to their favorite authors and works. I feel like this is just part of the reciprocal relationship between author and reader, but an aspect that non-designers wouldn't really understand.

You can CLICK HERE to view some of Adam's other work, but I want to also mention his cover for "The Glory of Their Times". I have a vintage hardback copy of this book which I absolutely love and it makes me happy to see that Johnson's cover retains some of that vintage feel. In fact, I'm considering picking up a copy just to have the set.

I encourage you to check out Adam's website, including his identity and illustration work. I know that finding it has started my Saturday on the right foot.

(images / found via designworklife)

INTERVIEW: Matt Roeser

I'm not sure which came first, my adoration for Matt Roeser's New Cover project or my love for his LOST re-watch site. But since this is a book blog, I'll just be covering the first in this post.

New Cover is based on a pretty simple idea: Matt creates a new cover for each book he reads. He has yet to have a book cover published, but after positive feedback from people in the industry, he hopes to have his first published cover soon. New Cover has really inspired me to continue working on my own personal projects and to always keep creating, so I was really excited when Matt agreed to do an interview with me about his own design process and his views on book cover design.

ALAINA: So how did New Cover get started?

MATT: Since I was a child, I've always enjoyed reading and in high school and college, I fell in love with graphic design. In the back of my mind, designing covers for books has always been a sort of dream job for me as it melds these two passions. After graduating college, I went to work for Atomicdust, a graphic design agency in St. Louis. For the past five years, I’ve been making creative matter with them, and a few months ago, I decided that if i'm going to pursue my dream of cover design, I would need to actually focus on creating some covers.

So, I started taking some of my favorite books and giving them the covers I thought they deserved. As a lover of these books, nothing would bum me out more than someone walking past one of these titles in a bookstore because it happened to get stuck in a poorly designed cover. Thus, New Cover was born and my mantra was simple: I read books and then design new covers for them.

My interview with Matt is a little bit long, but he has some great advice and some great insight on the design industry. So if you have any interest in books or design or humans I encourage you to click through the jump to read more (if you don't like any of those you're probably lying).

Also be sure to check out New Cover for yourself.