book jacket design |

Are you afraid?

We’re not. With the impending release date of the new Jackson Pearce novel Sisters Red creeping slowly closer (the official release date is June 7th, 2010), we’re getting pretty excited around here. The buzz about Pearce’s 2nd Young Adult novel is really good, and moreover, the cover art illustration and jacket design that we did for Jackson Pearce and her publisher Little, Brown & Co. has also been getting attention as well.

That’s just rad. I won’t lie. It’s not just gratifying as a lowly, often practically anonymous book jacket illustrator and designer, (I mean, I know that I look to see who designed covers I like, but really, I know that’s also an art nerd thing too).

Here’s the thing: The main challenge we were given when first approached for this book jacket design by Little, Brown & Co. was to create a cover illustration and design that would fully pull people across a crowded book store just to find out more about Sisters Red, based purely on the cover art. Awesome! That’s the sort of challenge every designer and illustrator wants, and, it’s also the kind of challenge is, well, frankly a heck of a challenge. However, working on this project was not only that, but super fun and one of the most rewarding creative experiences strawberryluna, as a firm, has had to date. It’s not surprising really, as Little Brown, & Co. is also the publisher for the Twilight Series as well, also with a stunningly notable cover art. We’re so thankful and excited about the whole shebang we wanted to share a little more with you.

Coupled with the coolness and a well-written upcoming new book like Sisters Red, you can imagine it’s been a dream project already. And the publication date is just over a month away!

To that end, there’s a bunch of fun goodies over at the Sisters Red website here. Like what? Alright, hold on a sec, I’ll ya. Dang!

There are beautiful Wallpapers for your Mobile Phones (the iPhone sized one is below as an example) and for your Computer Desktops here, all perfectly sized and ready to go for you.

Click to view all Wallpapers, sized & ready to download.

And, there are some neat E-Cards, as shown below. Send them and spook your friends into Believing.

Click to view & send all E-Cards.

Also, the lovely Jackson Pearce is not only an author, but a really great video-blogger. She’s always up to new and fun posts at her Live Journal site, and via her YouTube site as well. She posts about what she’s writing, the creative process, and speaks directly with her fans as well as other authors weekly. In a word? She’s rad!

If you are more interested in what Sisters Red is about, (and of course you are), you can click here to read an excerpt and definitely check out this promo video Pearce posted recently about Sisters Red here:

And finally, (wowzers!) a review of Sisters Red’s cover art from Barnes & Noble.com by Melissa-Walker, with Pearce’s perspective as well. We’re just tickled! Click here to read it.

Thanks so much again Jackson & Little, Brown, xo.

My ARC jacket design for Jackson Pearce's awesome new book "Sisters Red"

Well, OK, this post was a LONG time coming. I’ve been working on a bunch of really fun designs since the summer and haven’t posted many of them here on my blog. In part because for a few, like this one that I am SUPER excited about, I had to wait until everything was final and a full on GO.

And here we go! I got the chance and had the supreme pleasure of working with Little, Brown, & Co. on the book jacket design for Jackson Pearce, and really lovely and talented writer, on her newest book Sisters Red, which will be published to the public in June 2010. Jackson Pearce describes the plot best, so I won’t bother to butcher it for you:

Scarlett March lives to hunt the Fenris– the werewolves that took her eye when she was defending her sister Rosie from a brutal attack. Armed with a razor-sharp hatchet and blood-red cloak, Scarlett is an expert at luring and slaying the wolves. She’s determined to protect other young girls from a grisly death, and her raging heart will not rest until every single wolf is dead.

Rosie March once felt her bond with her sister was unbreakable. Owing Scarlett her life, Rosie hunts fiercely alongside her. Now Rosie dreams of a life beyond the wolves and finds herself drawn to Silas, a young woodsman who is deadly with an ax– but loving him means betraying her sister and has the potential to destroy all they’ve worked for.

A little publishing world insider information: What you see above is the final design for the ARC Cover, aka the Advanced Reading Copy, this is a near-final copy of a book that is sent out for reviews, but that may still have final revisions before the actual publication date. ARC covers are typically not the complete or final design, though sometimes they are very close. (As we think in this case…don’t you?)

Naturally having read a manuscript copy of Jackson’s book Sisters Red I can tell you that it’s super awesome and that you should certainly find a copy next year when it’s out (I’ll post a reminder, don’t worry) because it’s quite good. But, in the meantime Jackson is hosting a giveaway of a few of her personal copies of her ARCs on her website here with a super fun video of “Things You Can’t Have” (including her adorable puppy and some of my prints eeeee!) and then happily “Things You CAN Have” too, so check it out.

The main problem that this designed needed to solve was to be eye-catching and to be something that would attract you from across a room, say at a bookstore. Fun challenge for sure. So, I hope that you like it.

Double thanks to Tracy & Little, Brown & Co. and Jackson!

Book publishers, see anything you like 🙂 Feel free to contact us for book jacket design, we love doing them!

Strawberryluna

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Sweet new Sisters Red news & fun stuff!

Sisters Red, by Jackson Pearce & my book cover design