This is a monthly newsletter that I write for Imagine Housing, a nonprofit housing developer and services provider on the Eastside. The Blueprint: Get connected to volunteer opportunities, learn what’s happening in our communities and stay on top of changes in legislation that affect funding for affordable housing.
Here are a few samples of The Blueprint:
How We Survive Here: Families Across Time is a historical memoir for which I designed the interior. The cover design credit goes to Sabrina Sun. The interior of this book provided a number of challenges: 1) footnotes, 2) an index, 3) photographs, and 4) a variety of text styles to distinguish prose and narration from excerpted historical documents. I designed the book in Adobe inDesign, with some photo editing done in Adobe Photoshop.
This Epicenter Press product catalog for the Fall 2018 – Spring 2019 season was developed to include frontlist (i.e., new and upcoming titles) and backlist titles (i.e., old titles still in print). This modular catalog is designed to grow with the business, so that future titles can be easily integrated into the product line without the need for a complete re-design of the catalog. Continue reading “Catalog | Epicenter Press Fall 2018 – Spring 2019 Title List and Backlist”
I designed both the cover and interior of Fireweed: An American Saga, a novel set in the Okanogan Valley of north central Washington. I worked collaboratively with the daughter of the deceased author to find the perfect cover image that evokes the atmosphere and majesty of Eastern Washington.
I designed both the cover and interior of A Guide to the Notorious Bars of Alaska. The interior presented some unique challenges, as each bar featured in the book includes a varied amount of information, with some bars including historic images, and yet each bar needed to be presented in a way pleasing to the eye and spaced evenly. The back cover features a historic black and white color photo that I colorized.
Continue reading “A Guide to the Notorious Bars of Alaska, Revised 2nd Edition”
I designed the covers for this Annie MacPherson mystery series in Adobe inDesign, with some editing in Adobe Photoshop. I used Adobe Illustrator to create the series logo on the front covers and the Fiat convertible on the back covers. The cover paintings are courtesy of Charles Laurens Heald. I also designed the interiors of these novels.
Continue reading “Sea of Troubles, Practice to Deceive, & A Vintage Murder”
I designed the interiors and covers of these three books from beloved Pacific Northwestern author, Stewart H. Holbrook.
Continue reading “James J. Hill, Little Annie Oakley, & The Rocky Mountain Revolution”
I designed the full cover of this cozy mystery using Adobe inDesign. Working collaboratively with the author, we selected a series of images for the front cover that evoked the scene and story of the novel, which I then composited in Adobe Photoshop.
I designed the covers and interiors of these two Alaskan adventure stories. Working collaboratively with the deceased author’s daughter, I brainstormed concept and design of the cover, then implemented that design in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe inDesign.
Continue reading “Down the Wild River North & The Flight of the Arctic Tern”
I designed the cover and interior of What Happened in Craig in Adobe inDesign. The front cover was edited in Adobe Photoshop, compositing a series of images to evoke the place and tone of the book with the map of Craig, Alaska and the ghost of the fire on a fishing schooner.
The interior design incorporates a series of images that are presented as a photo gallery at the beginning of each of the three sections of the book.
I designed the full cover of this cozy mystery in Adobe inDesign, and I did the photo editing for the front cover in Adobe Photoshop.
I designed the cover and interior of this cozy mystery in Adobe inDesign, and did the photo editing for the cover image in Adobe Photoshop. The logo for the Crooked Eye Brewery is courtesy of the Crooked Eye Brewery in Biscay, PA. I edited the logo to give the effect of metallic, raised sign on the side of the building.
I designed the cover and interior of this cookbook in Adobe inDesign. I designed the map of Alaska on the opening pages in Adobe Illustrator. A particular challenge in this book is that there are not only recipes, but anecdotes, historical facts, and interesting food tidbits that need to be integrated into the design. I accomplished this by inserting those as sidebar content on relevant pages.
Postcards are another ancillary marketing material that can supplement bookmarks and posters. Unlike bookmarks and posters, however, postcards can be used for direct mail marketing, and authors often find success in using bookmarks to announce the publication of their work to friends, family, colleagues, or media contacts.
Facebook and Twitter are chief digital marketing tools in the social media realm. As social media manager, I observed that posts with images received higher traffic and views. In response to this data, I began developing banners and one-shot picture posts to publicize titles and events specifically on social media. Posters are an effective way to announce events at tradeshows, bookstores, or community centers. Print-ready magazine advertisements, formatted to the specifications of the magazine printer and designed to catch the passing eye.
The poster, social media images, and magazine advertisements below announce specific author events and book releases to the public and were designed in Adobe inDesign.
Bookmarks are an ideal way for authors to share information about their books at pre-publication events for marketing and promotion, or to enclose with a signed copy of the book at a signing event. All bookmarks have information on where the reader can buy the book and what the book is about. Below are some samples of bookmarks I have designed in Adobe inDesign, with some image editing done in Adobe Photoshop.
The cover of this history book posed an interesting challenge in that the authors utilized historical documents and black and white photos. To evoke a more modern look to the images, I colorized the historical photos, and placed the image of the road curving into the distance to create depth and motion. The brief letter on the back cover is a direct quote from the author’s father to his sweetheart (and eventual wife) back home during his Army service in WWII and was composited in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. All maps in the interior and the timeline were designed in Adobe Illustrator. The book interior was designed in Adobe inDesign and incorporated many historical images within the text.
The book cover was designed in Adobe inDesign, though I did the photo editing in Adobe Photoshop. The text of the title “Denali Ranger” was edited in Adobe Illustrator, since I wanted the effect of the leg of the letter “R” to have a long extension to evoke and height and danger of mountain climbing.
The text of Denali Ranger incorporates numerous photographs Roger Robinson supplied. I also created a “sketchbook-style” motif of Mount Denali to use at each chapter opening, to give the sense of height and impact of the mountain with each transition.
Continue reading “Denali Ranger: A Life of Drama and Adventure on America’s Tallest Peak”
The cover image for Trusting the River was a photograph taken by the author’s husband, Tom Irons, and the clean simplicity of the interior is inspired by the self-sufficient living required in the Alaskan Wilderness. My challenge in typesetting the interior was creating a uniform look for each chapter opening that utilized photographs taken by the author and her family. For this reason, each chapter opens on a right facing page, and the photographs are opposite on the left facing page. The cover itself captures the mood of the Alaskan wilderness, where the scenery and landscape comes alive as a character and speaks for itself.
I designed the complete cover of this paranormal/history book in Adobe inDesign, and created an emboss effect on the title to create a three-dimensional look to the text. I designed the map in Adobe Illustrator, designing “pins” for the relevant cities mentioned in the book. Historical images are incorporated into the text design.
This full-color, illustrated book is a celebration of nature, wildlife, and the incomparable beauty of the Pacific Northwest.
I was involved in this project from the very beginning, to review of the manuscript, to editing the text, writing the cover copy and promotional material, designing the cover and interior, and designing the ancillary promotional materials. I also managed the eventual print production of the final product, liaising with the printer to ensure timely delivery. The cover image is a favorite with booksellers, and the title received a five star review from Foreword Reviews prior to publication.
Continue reading “Klee Wyck Journal: The Making of a Wilderness Retreat”
Aubrey L White 