Kimberly Glyder on Designing Gerta
Kimberly Glyder is a designer specializing in book covers, illustration and lettering. Here she details her process for designing the cover of Kateřina Tučková’s Gerta.
Gerta is a fictional account of a young woman’s experience during the expulsion of Sudeten Germans amid the Brno death march in 1945. The main character, Gerta, is half Czech and half German, but is forced to leave with her child born out of terrible circumstances.
As with any sensitive topic, the challenge is to find visuals that inspire. I chose to focus on Gerta herself and also to hint at a sense of place.
The first round of comps ranges from bolder, more expressive hand drawn lettering to quieter comps showing mother and child.
The consensus was that the lone, inset figure of Gerta was the most appealing. We focused on the solitary Gerta, walking on the train tracks during the brutal march, with the town looming behind her.
The face needed to be changed due to rights issues, so the next task was doing research and Photoshopping the figure’s face with another one. My editor and art director also wanted to see an option where I drew the landscape as opposed to having the starker photograph.
Through multiple rounds, we continued refining this design. There were worries about the pink, perhaps that it may come across as overly “feminine,” (I love the pink but have always had trouble getting this color approved!).
There were iterations with the pattern playing a more dominant role. I tried replacing the town with the florals, but that wasn’t quite the right fit. My art director had the idea to add in snow, which was the perfect touch, further illuminating the figure.
We finally settled on a deep rose color which paired nicely with the blue and black. The final iteration included a modified illustration I created based on a photo. Gerta’s face is hidden and we just see her resolute figure amidst the snow. I moved the pattern to the inside of the title letterforms and colored them more boldly. The circular parts of the pattern compliment the similarly shaped snowflakes.
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Printed with emboss on the title, spot gloss on the snowflakes.
Final cover
And the final printed jacket and case:
Editor, artworker and lifelong bibliophile.