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
1 comment:
Being privy to the behind the scenes on this one, I might suggest you share an abbreviated variation of the in house design process you prepared for your readers so they can get a more complete picture of all you went through, including the several hours in Coach Dingy's office sorting through photos. And how you arrived at the final design. That is if you have time, which is always at a premium.
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