BOOK DESIGN

Approaching Improv

Caitlin Drago and I go way back. She was my first branding client when I graduated from design school, and is a close personal friend of many years. We have near-identical DISC Assessment scores. And she still uses the logo we worked on together all the way back in 2016.

Early ideas

Simple ideas to get us started playing with some different color combinations that we discussed in our initial style consult.

The circle / square combinations are an invisible nod to the “yes, and” mantra of improvisation, with the circles representing the words’ vowels and the squares representing the consonants.

v3

Inside the book

When she contacted me in 2023 to design a book cover for her, I was delighted. When that project eventually expanded to include a full book & ePub treatment, I was thrilled. Working on a start-to-finish project with someone who really trusts you is a massive privilege.

Lots of play with the same group of colors, shapes, and vectors. The motif of repetition starts to emerge in the v2 round.

Hierarchy of styles, re-design of diagrams that Caitlin had laid out in Powerpoint, various visual elements to break up the copy and emphasize points throughout the book.

v2

v4 + fin.

I liked the dark blue, and felt it was worth re-introducing it at this late stage to see if the feeling of “blueprint” did anything for Caitlin. I like a late-in-the-game harmless curveball, and will throw it when I trust a client to tell me if something doesn’t work.