Maeve Norton on Designing the Wickedly Vibrant cover for The Feeling of Falling in Love
Maeve Norton is an award-winning illustrator and designer based in Brooklyn, NY. She currently works as an Associate Art Director for middle grade and young adult novels at Scholastic. Here she takes us through her process for designing a wicked cover for The Feeling of Falling in Love.
If you aren’t familiar with Mason Deaver’s work, it’s about time you get acquainted. The Feeling of Falling in Love is the t4t love story we’ve all been waiting for. Neil Kearney is set to fly across the country with his childhood friend (and current friend-with-benefits) Josh, to attend his brother's wedding—until Josh tells Neil that he's in love with him and Neil doesn't return the sentiment. With Josh still attending the wedding, Neil needs to find a new date to bring along. And, almost against his will, roommate Wyatt is drafted. At first, Wyatt (correctly) thinks Neil is acting like a jerk. But when they get to LA, Wyatt sees a little more of where it's coming from. Slowly, Neil and Wyatt begin to understand one another… and maybe, just maybe, fall in love for the first time…
I always begin my book designs with a mood board but I don’t always pull inspiration from other book covers. For this book, I reached out to my team and kindly said STOP everything you’re doing and listen to Olivia Rodrigo’s SOUR all the way through at least 3 times. They may have thought I was crazy, but ultimately it set the tone of the book.
Immediately I knew that I wanted the imagery of the cover to be a sharp contrast to the title. I could have easily gone with the classic romcom teen look, but where would the fun be in that? If you’ve experienced the fortunes and misfortunes of teen love, I think you know just how messy it can be, so I began to explore imagery that represented that messiness. Almost immediately one thought kept running through my head, love is a real dumpster fire.
I write this with the utmost caution because any designer will know how rare and unlikely this scenario is. When I showed these concepts to my team it was decided unanimously and with no notes (no notes!!!) that the dumpster fire was the way to go. This was the first concept I worked up and ultimately with little to no changes ended up being the final cover.
Final cover
With all my approaches, it was important to me that Neil's confident and unapologetic personality was portrayed through the design. Strong type alongside warm colors helped to show the duality in him as well as his growth throughout the story. The collage approach related to the themes of piecing family and friendships back together after they needed much mending. My goal was to make sure this book didn’t look like any other romcom out there because it simply isn’t like any other romcom out there. It needed a warmth, boldness and sassiness to it that I knew readers would gravitate towards whether or not they could relate to Neil’s experience as a trans boy. After all, love is a glorious dumpster fire filled with fun and romance and messiness. It is a universal feeling that we can all relate to that, no matter what.
Editor, artworker and lifelong bibliophile.