One of the first things that drew us to Kristina Forest’s I Wanna Be Where You Are is its gorgeous cover. While we are often taught not to judge a book by its cover, this cover hooked us from the very start told us everything we needed to know about this cute rom-com. As we dived into the book this month for book club, we wanted to get all the details behind this stunning design. We asked cover designer Cassie Gonzales for an in-depth look, and here's what she had to say. How did you get into book cover design? I got a BFA in Communications Design from Pratt Institute. After my junior year of college, I got an internship with HarperCollins on the design team for the ad/promo department. To make the ads, I had to download the book jacket files and work with existing art. I immediately decided I wanted to be the one making the book covers, not the ads and picked up a few cover design internships at St. Martin’s Press and Penguin Random House before landing in children’s design post-college at Little Brown Young Readers.  Also, I want to say for anyone out there who is interested in getting into book design: it happens to be that I do have a fancy design degree from a fancy art school, but I know plenty of designers, on my team and across the industry, that have a design degree from a non-art school, or no design degree at all! To my knowledge there aren’t any book design specific programs, so you learn a lot on the job and as you rise up in your career. What was your creative process behind designing this cover? All covers follow the same process. I start by reading the entire manuscript. Then I’ll research the background and the setting of the novel, in this case, ballet + road trip, and the visual experience that would go along with that. After I get a general idea of what I want, I do a few sketches and discuss it with the editor. Then we either hire an illustrator or move forward with a stock photo or photoshoot. After a few revisions and input from the wider MacKids team (including the president, sales team, marketing and publicity teams, etc.), we have a final cover.  Here is a video of Cassie discussing the creative process behind the cover design for I Wanna Be Where You Are. Who was the artist you worked with?  Her name is Alex Cabal! She’s incredible. I think I was the first person to work on a book cover with her, and now she’s done a ton with different designers across publishing!  What was the inspiration behind choosing this artist?  I usually present around 3-5 different artists to my Art Director, and then we narrow it down with the Publisher to one that we’d like to reach out to. One of the main notes I remember the author giving for both her books was that we wanted someone who could illustrate Black skin beautifully. Alex’s characters are so luminous and gorgeous, they jump off the page and draw you right in!  How did you come up with the color scheme for this cover? Almost everything is trial and error. We had a bunch of versions before landing on this one that focused on a warm, pinkish, more romantic color palette, and once we switched gears and decided to go in the cooler blue/green direction, it just clicked into place. 

If there is anything you could change about the cover, what would it be? Trick question, the cover is perfect! You always have sketches you like that get killed along the way, but in this case, I think we ended up with the best cover for this book. What made you choose that particular font used on the cover? I started working on the type before I started working on what the illustration would look like. The main character is a ballerina, but I was instructed by the team that I couldn’t include the character doing ballet on the cover. So I wanted type that was delicate and ballet-esque. In this case, I ended up going with something that looked like ballet ribbons. See some of the other options below!  In what ways do authors usually get involved in the process? We are fairly open when the author wants to get involved. Usually, they let the editor know their general thoughts initially, and then once we have sketches or comps to show after the first round, the author will weigh in. In this case, Kristina had some specific requests that we kept in mind, like the beautiful skin and the fact that Chloe should have a purple shirt since that’s her favorite color!  Special thanks to Cassie for taking the time to do this look behind the cover for I Wanna Be Where You Are. You can see more of Cassie's cover designs on her website at casandragonzales.com

I Wanna be Where You Are by Kristina Forest