How I Was Told There’d Be Cake Avoided Getting Covered with Icing

In an article published today on mediabistro.com, Rachel Kramer Bussel discusses the complex dance that author and designer enter into when it comes time to devise a book’s cover. Case in point: Sloane Crosley‘s briskly selling essay collection (and potential future HBO series) I Was Told There’d Be Cake. Says Crosley:

“When we started thinking about covers, my one big fear was, do not put the title in icing. No smudged icing, no icing on a kid’s face, just no icing.” Of the cover image of a blue mattress with white text superimposed, she says, “It’s a very risky choice but I would rather have that than some body parts or some icing or what happens when an author objects 11 times and you hit a compromise and have something that doesn’t anger anybody; that doesn’t always make for the best cover.”

The cover was designed by Penguin associate art director Ben Gibson, who tells Bussel that he was inspired by one of the book’s essays. “I did a bunch of designs initially but the mattress photo is something I had just hung onto for a while because I liked the picture, so when I read that story, it clicked that it would fit well.”

This article is one of several mediabistro.com features exclusively available to AvantGuild subscribers. If you’re not a member yet, you can register for $59 a year, and start reading those articles, receive discounts on mediabistro.com seminars and workshops, and get all sorts of other swell bonuses.

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