I’ll Keep You Close: Book Cover Process

Every book cover goes through multiple iterations before it becomes the finished work you see on shelves. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the cover of I’LL KEEP YOU CLOSE by @jeska_verstegen! 

First stage

First, peep this early concept by design team @strickandwilliams (Charlotte Strick and Claire Williams Martinez), which used pocket imagery to evoke young Jeska’s character, who keeps prized sharpened sticks and her tiny Bessie Blue doll deep within her own pockets; the thinking was that pockets are for hiding things that are precious. The title would be “stitched” on the pocket with some loose, imperfect threads, building on further imagery from the book; Jesje does some hand sewing with her mother. And when Jesje thinks of her grandmother, she says, “I can see her now, needle, thread, and sewing materials gathered together on her lap. Did she make impatient stitches like mine or, like Mama, did she sew very tidy ones?” 

Second stage

But then, along with three-time Calcedott Medalist David Wiesner, another of Strick&Williams’ initial concepts came to the forefront: maple leaves, which eventually transform into a Star of David, circle the title type, almost hugging or hiding the letters before falling to the ground. Of this process and concept, David Wiesner notes, “I was immediately excited by that, as the transformation of shapes — one thing into another — is a visual idea that recurs often in my own work. This was so simple and elegant, both visually and conceptually. The leaves were to be large-ish, which meant that the transformation had to happen with only a few leaves. In a blizzard of leaves the change could have happened slowly, over a longer swath of shapes. But with only a few leaves it had to happen more quickly. It took a few back-and-forths to work out what leaves would change and how much; when to introduce the color shift from the autumn leaves to the yellow of the stars; and to decide how much the leaves should overlap the typography. Again, with just a few elements there is a subtle balance between them. There’s a lot of massaging, but at a certain point it feels right.” 

Third stage

Here’s how David got those leaves to look so lifelike: “I cut out paper leaves so that I could fold and bend them and see how they could wrap around the letters. I could also turn them in space to get interesting and accurate shapes of them as they drifted and fell. I also cut out the stars. That gave me the starting and ending points of the transformations and I then drew the intermediate, in-between, stages.”

Finalized product

Check it all out below, and make sure to tag us using the hashtag #illkeepyouclose !

Ta-da!