THE STORY BEHIND I AM A STORY Part 6

The last element of a picture book that is addressed is the cover. 

The design and art is usually done after all of the art for the book has been completed. It's a very important component because it's the first thing you see and must encapsulate the idea and feel of the book into a single image. It's sort of like a poster or an ad for the book.

There were many ideas for the cover of I AM A STORY. 

It proved to be difficult because the content wasn't a character in a story. It was an extremely broad view of thousands of years of different ways stories were presented.

So how to approach it?

I thought maybe showing bits and pieces from the interiors in a design.

Or go totally minimal.

 

Perhaps work vignettes into a design with the type.

 

Maybe make it less geometric.

 

Make it all about the title? With a hint of narrative?

 

How about more of a balance between title and image?

 

This felt right.

So that's the story behind I AM A STORY. 

I am so thankful to Nancy Inteli and Rick Farley for all of their hard work and patience.

You can see the wonderful trailer HarperCollins created for it here. I think they did a fabulous job!

I've been creating books for 24 years. My fascination and love of the medium and it's possibilities continues to grow. I'm truly grateful to be able to continue to write and illustrate stories for children. I've always felt that children's books are the most important books we'll ever read and that a child's experience of a story can last a lifetime. I'm so grateful to be able to continue to create them.

I hope this in-depth look gives you an idea of what went into the creation of the book and what my intentions were. 

Mostly I hope you enjoyed it.

Onward!