I am a huge fan of design. Those who know me, know that I majored in communication design before I moved completely to illustration. Fortunately, I have been lucky enough to further my design practice along with my illustration and am now able to find balance between the two disciplines. In NY, I sharpened my design skills while working at Bloomsbury Publishing. I mainly handled paperback conversions, but I also had a chance to work on some title treatments for covers and a few picturebooks. When I work on my own books, I think about the design as much as the visual narrative.
I recently delivered cover art and a few black and white interiors for a really fantastic YA novel. When the editor sent me a cover comp, I had a few issues with the design—mainly the type treatment. In the beginning of the project, I pictured the jacket with a hand written title and expressed it to the editor, but when I delivered the art I didn’t have time to explore it. After seeing the cold computer generated font that was chosen, I knew a hand lettered font would have much more impact and personality, so I went ahead and made one.
the original type treatment
Showing is always better than telling.
I drew over the original type treatment and added my own embellishments and adjustments. I then scanned the drawing into photoshop, created paths and imported them into illustrator where I was able to clean and kern until it looked less like casual writing and more like stylized letterforms. Once I was satisfied with the weight and spacing, I pulled it back into photoshop and embossed it. The editor really liked it and is using it on the cover. 
type by Shadra 
Many thanks to my editor, Christina, who supported my vision for this project. I can’t wait to share the book with you!
Tags: cover design, hand lettering, type