Vanish

Everyone once in a while, I find myself engrossed in a book that I just can't put down. You know that feeling, the one that won't let you the put down—no matter how late into the night it gets.

Vanish is one of those books. It's a riveting, fast-paced novel that had me from the beginning and kept me reading because I just had to know how it was going to turn out. Take a look at this back cover copy:

A powerful storm.
A small group of survivors, stranded in a deserted city.
An unsolvable mystery that threatens the very fabric of existence.
A mysterious boy who may hold the key.
When everything else has vanished, only the truth remains.

If this back cover copy doesn't get you excited to read the book, I'm not sure what will. The story also delves into the possibility of two worlds or two planes of existence, thus the duality of the cover design. The trees play a large part in setting the mood for the book and reference the ominus settings the characters find themselves in. Even the gray color scheme references the dreary landscape of the deserted city and the mysterious creatures that haunt the streets. All of these elements come together to create a powerful, suspenseful cover.

THE SPECS:
+ PUBLISHER: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
+ RELEASING: July 2008
+ FORMAT: 5.25" x 8.5" softcover
+ PRINTING: 4/C
+ COATING: overall matte + spot gloss
+ FONTS USED: Dirty Ego

America the Beautiful

Imagine a United States where politics is front and center, where political races are full of hidden secrets, and where a woman is running for president. Sound like an America we know? It may become one soon, but it's a definite reality in the new political thriller called America the Beautiful.

The primary objective when designing this cover was to show a woman running for president. Thus we made the woman candidate front and center, weaved the presidential seal into the title treatment, and brought the White House into the background. The secondary objective was to contrast the idealistic view of American politics against the hidden secrets found behind the scenes. Thus the top half is the above-board idealistic view we all hope politics will be and the bottom shows how hidden secrets are corrupting the run for the presidency. This corruption has infiltrated part of the title treatment and the White House itself.

The end result is a dramatic cover that showcases the intersection of politics, power, personality, and even the future of our country. And this final cover is the result of a collaborative effort between myself and another designer, Julie Chen. Julie and I concepted ideas together then worked back and forth on each other's work to create the final product you see above. What you see is a great example of how working together as a team can create great results.

THE SPECS:
+ PUBLISHER: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
+ RELEASING: May 2008
+ FORMAT: 5.5" x 8.25" softcover
+ PRINTING: 4/C
+ COATING: overall gloss
+ FONTS USED: Eurostile + Helvetica

By Reason of Insanity

Courtroom battles . . . gruesome murders . . . insanity pleas . . . horrific visions . . . dramatic chases . . . and so much more fill the pages of By Reason of Insanity. It's a story that's part legal thriller, part mystery, and part edge-of-your-seat suspense. It is a story with dramatic impact, and it cries out for a blockbuster cover. In the industry, this look is created using strong author treatments, bold title stylings, and impactful imagery to draw the consumer into the suspense found within. The big names in the suspense genre—Michael Connelly, John Sanford, Richard North Patterson, Harlen Coben—use these elements consistently. For By Reason of Insanity, I wanted to show that Randy can compete on the same level as the big name authors, so the cover uses these elements as building blocks to create a unique, dramatic cover that pops off the shelf. The image itself creates a sense of intrigue and mystery because we don't know whose shadow it is—is it the hero's or the murder's? We don't know, which makes the cover more interesting—especially because we also don't know where this scene takes place. Is it a back porch? A train car? Or a boat dock? We don't know, and that makes this book fit perfectly within the suspense genre while also making it stand out from the competition.

For more about Randy Singer, visit his website.

THE SPECS:
+ PUBLISHER: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
+ RELEASING: May 2008
+ FORMAT: 6" x 9" hardcover
+ PRINTING: 4/C
+ COATING: overall matte + spot gloss
+ EMBOSSING: round (for title + author)
+ FONTS USED: Futura

Quiet Strength

With the end of a remarkable football season now behind us, it seems only fitting that the first cover design I present here is about a man who has done so much for the game. If you follow football at all, you know about last year's Super Bowl matchup between the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts. Featuring the first African American coach to win the big game, the Super Bowl also brought into the spotlight the unusual coaching style of the Colts' head coach Tony Dungy. He doesn't feel the need to yell, curse, and threaten his players. Instead, he talks to them, works with them, and builds them up to help them succeed. Coach Dungy is known for his quiet strength, which became the perfect title for the biography Tyndale published with him last year.

When our team at Tyndale sat down to discuss this project, we agreed we wanted to create a cover that goes beyond football. Obviously, we wanted people to know he was the coach they had been hearing about, but we also wanted people to know that Tony's life is more than just football. Tony lives for his family, his friends, and helping others. We knew the story of his life could reach a much broader audience than die-hard football fans. The cover had to strike a balance between football memoir and serious biography.

With the help of a strong team, I searched through hundreds of photos looking for just the right one that showed Coach Dungy on the sidelines exuding the quiet strength he's so known for. At first, we thought we would want to show the coach without his headset. After all, the Colts hat said football loud and clear, so we thought the headset was either going to be too much football or just be too distracting. But once we found the right image, the headset had to stay. Without it, the coach didn't look like a coach; he just looked like a man in a hat. With it, he looked like the coach everyone has seen on television. So the headset stayed, I combined that with a design that says "serious biography," and we had our cover.

Personally, it was an honor to work on this project with Coach Dungy. He's truly a humble man of integrity who stands out from the crowd because he honestly cares about the world around him. I encourage you to read his memoir and see how one man can have a dramatic impact on the lives he touches.

For more about Tony Dungy and the book, visit CoachDungy.com.

THE SPECS:
+ PUBLISHER: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
+ RELEASED: 2007
+ FORMAT: 6" x 9" hardcover
+ PRINTING: 4/C + PMS 872
+ COATING: overall gloss
+ EMBOSSING: round (for title + author)
+ FONTS USED: Trajan + Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk

what stage am I in?

AS A KID, I NEVER DREAMED OF BEING A DESIGNER. I didn't even know such a job existed. But I did know about writers because I read a lot growing up. Mostly science fiction and fantasy books, but any good fiction novel would work. Naturally, I dreamed of becoming a writer one day.

God had other plans for me.

Luckily, it didn't take me long in journalism school to realize I was never going to be a great writer. But I still loved words, so I took up editing. That lasted one semester until I took my first newspaper design course. I was horrible at it, at first, but I was amazed by all of it! I went on to study newspaper and magazine design at the University of Missouri–Columbia all while keeping up with my writing and editing skills. While college prepared me well for the real world, it also taught me a valuable lesson: Great design is always based on content. I've carried that foundational principle into each job and every project I've worked on.

Coming out of journalism school, I started my career at stage1: newspaper designer. I headed to North Carolina to design and copyedit at the Greensboro News & Record. It was a fast-paced, fun job that taught me how to think fast on my feet, edit photos well, and respect the medium I was working on.

In an unexpected turn, less than 2 years later I entered stage2: magazine designer. My wife and I moved to San Francisco to work for PC Gamer magazine—she as the managing editor, me as the soon-to-be art director. (Yes, we worked less than eight feet apart every day for five years, and we're still happily married.) Working closely in a team of nine people putting out a monthly magazine taught me how to partner well with people to create the best products possible. It was also a great training ground for me to learn how to art direct, how to create successful designs (and not-so-successful ones), and how to bring new energy to the same medium time after time. After five years, I helped launch Revolution, a dance music magazine for the mainstream market. It was an incredible challenge to create a magazine from the ground up, but it taught me the value of creating a strong vision and working to achieve and maintain that vision.

It didn't take long before the pace and lifestyle of launching a new magazine demanded too much time away from my family, and that's when I entered stage3: book designer. After working on newspapers that get thrown away the next day and then creating magazines that barely last a month, I am now working on books that can last years. The best part isn't that my designs last longer; it's that the content of the products is relevant to people much longer. Tyndale publishes books and Bibles that "minister to the spiritual needs of people." That's our mission, and we work hard to make sure it's true on every product that goes out our doors. You may have heard of The Living Bible or the Left Behind series or even Tony Dungy's biography, Quiet Strength. Tyndale publishes a wide range of products that help people understand and live with the world around them. Currently, I have the privilege art directing our fiction and Bible products with a hugely talented design team. We have a team of roughly 20 people who work hard to create great work, but we work even harder to help each other every step of the way. It's a rarity to see such collaboration in a design environment, but our team atmosphere helps us create outstanding products.

This blog is an effort to show you how this collaborative environment has helped me in my designs. I don't know what the next stage of my career might look like, but for now, I'm going to be showing you what stage3: book designer looks like. I would love to hear your thoughts on any of these projects, and I hope you enjoy what's to come.

Sincerely,
Dean