Jakob Vala on Designing Poetry Collection Anodyne
Jakob Vala is Senior Designer at Tin House. Here he takes us through his process for designing Khadijah Queen’s poetry collection, Anodyne.
I was a little hesitant to write about the cover design for Anodyne, because it makes my job seem so easy. The process took only a few hours, from my initial meeting with marketing to getting approval from all parties. A lot of the credit should go to the author, Khadijah Queen, who found the cover art.
Tin House authors fill out a cover design questionnaire and include existing covers they like (or don't like) as well as any art they feel would be a good fit. The questionnaire is less of a creative brief than it is a mood board. It gives the art department a sense of an author's general aesthetic and how they see the book.
Anodyne considers the complexities of the human experience in a world under threat of collapse. In the first poem, "In the Event of an Apocalypse, Be Ready to Die," Khadijah describes "repositories of beauty now ruin" as "untended loveliness" stocked with "mold-streaked treasures." She writes about the sweetness of a peach, chronic pain, the end of the world, and, from the book's description: "terrible consequences and stunning miracles."
For the cover, Khadijah liked modern, abstract art with strong movement and hints of undoing. Many of the images she sent held a full spectrum of color that was either muted or vibrant. There were a lot of crisp edges and areas where elements had been pushed apart. Those disruptions reminded me of a line in the book, "in everything alive a disturbance." It felt thematically important to break up the cover in some way.
Starry Night and the Astronauts by Alma Thomas
Of the art Khadijah sent, I was most drawn to one piece in particular: Romare Bearden's "Untitled (Woman with Flower)." Everyone in the office liked it as well. I did briefly try one other direction, using a non-objective painting sent by Khadijah, but it was immediately clear it wouldn't play well with type and I thought Bearden's art was a better fit, regardless. Bearden is best known for the jazz-influenced improvisational techniques he used to create brightly colored and heavily layered paintings and collages. I'd never seen a work of his that looked like this; it's almost stark in comparison.
I like that Bearden's collage retains traces of his process: there are smudges, pencil marks, and slices from imperfect cuts. The drab, textured masonite board works in juxtaposition to the smooth arc of the colorful background shapes. Anodyne is Khadijah's sixth book—her writing is crisp and exact, but also intimate and honest about the messiness of life.
While Khadijah wanted the book to look modern, she associated it with many different time periods. The cover art has an art nouveau sense of drama, with the tension of the sweeping background and the statue-like figure. Even with the movement of the bright colors, the real focal point is the stillness between the woman and the rose. To me, it feels both vintage and contemporary.
Final cover
The collage appears to exist only at the Studio Museum in Harlem and now, on this cover. Bearden co-founded the museum and, fortunately, they also own the reproduction rights and directed me to the Romare Bearden Foundation, which granted additional permission. There were a number of restrictions set by Bearden's estate: I couldn't crop or modify the art or put any type over it. Those kinds of limits have been deal breakers in the past, but I was grateful for them, this time, because they pushed me toward the final design.
I chose the typeface Futura for its balance of classic and modern traits. It's one of my favorites and it's incredibly versatile as the tone will change, depending on what it's paired with. I make a list of imagery and themes as I read manuscripts—more concepts and metaphor than concrete visuals. My notes for Anodyne included the phrases "the rough of a cut" and "smooth from the pain." In keeping with that, the sharp points of the type work in contrast to the fullness of the art.
I always think about the spine and back as I design a front cover — especially if the art can wrap around the book. In this case, the full layout felt like a natural extension of the front. I mocked it up right away so I'd remember my idea when I set up the final files nine months later. I wanted to retain the elegance of the collage, while continuing to split things apart.
Full cover
Editor, artworker and lifelong bibliophile.