Mark Abrams on Designing Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing
Mark Abrams, enduring cover designer at Vintage/Anchor, Penguin Random House, lives in Brooklyn (of course) with his local pod. He will update his website any day now. Here he takes us through his process for designing Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing.
Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing is a collection of funny, often acidic, sneakily (or not so sneakily) intimate essays by Lauren Hough. Reading a Hough essay feels like catching up with an old friend in a dive bar; the drinks are cheap but strong, and you’re hearing some eye-popping yarns. Maybe there’s a flickering TV showing some disturbing national news in the background as well, and there’s an uncanny parallel to all the yarns you’re hearing. They’re good. ★★★★.
It seemed like the cover design could go in a couple of directions. Hough was raised in the infamous, and rather sinister, Christian cult The Children of God (aka the Family) before she broke away, and the reverberations of that ran throughout the text. The second major thread running through the collection was the accumulation of tough, anomalous jobs, including a stint in the Air Force, a bouncer at a gay club and — in her most well-known essay — as a “cable guy,” wandering through America’s underbelly as a cable technician.
I sent a first round of designs to the Editor, to get his thoughts before sharing with all of Editorial. The Editor was less than delighted; they weren’t quite working for him. I didn’t disagree (sometimes the muse hums in your ear, sometimes not so much). They will remain unseen, lost to history. This was my second round:
This effort was better. I found inspiration in Jack Chick comics, cable type (by way of the type wizards at Handmadefont), weirdo fringe cult poster design, and broken crosses. In the next cover meeting with Editorial, after some back and forth, we settled on three designs to send to the author—the wire type, the abstract explosion, and the splintered telephone pole.
Hough liked the wire type cover but—true to her cable repair know-how—was wondering if maybe the ends of the frayed wires could look more like coaxial cables… with silver and copper ends. You know, like the classic coaxial cable that connect to TV sets, as everyone knows. Oh no.
Grumbling, I set to work spiriting the little red and blue circuits away and ushering the silvery coaxial endings in. Also, following a clever idea of the Editor, I added some sparks, and a little smoke for good measure. Bzzzttt!! This added the dollop of energy to communicate the live-wire energy of Hough’s voice.
This final tweak won enthusiastic approval, and the design was done.
Final cover
Editor, artworker and lifelong bibliophile.