I wasn’t in the office when the finished jackets for Patsy arrived. The first time I saw them they were stacked neatly next to my keyboard on top of a few other hot-off-the-press jackets. I immediately inspected every line, felt the paper stock, ran my hands over the surface and exhaled in relief. Then smiled and wrapped every book on my window ledge with them. A wall of Patsy! This one was special for me. I started drawing its roadmap years ago, navigating conversations about race and sexuality, and sketching ideas that would be creatively challenging to myself and potentially for the company. I know I’m not curing cancer behind my iMac over here, but as I held this piece of paper soaked with vivid violet, orange, and red inks, I felt the weight of holding something I knew would be important to so many individuals. A portal to transport them into an imagined world where they would meet people whom they needed to meet. People who would help them find some inner peace and a place to channel their emotions, suppressed and otherwise. A tonic, in some ways, to the insensitive and close-minded chatter that serpentines it’s way through our society. When the design process began, I knew I needed to work from a place of authenticity and acuity for how we currently talk about love and equality. When the process ended however, I wondered, did any of that even matter? 

“Every project feels like the first time,” says designer Alban Fischer, despite having designed over 300 covers in his career. Before the full translation of Sara Mesa’s novel, Four by Four, was even complete Fischer knew “it was right up my alley.”

For the 20th anniversary reissue of Mary Herring Wright’s memoir Sounds Like Home: Growing Up Black and Deaf in the South, designer Eric Wilder faced the challenge of delivering Wright’s message to 21st-century readers. The memoir’s old cover, which featured a scripted typeface a sepia-toned photograph of the author and her brother, simply would not do for the much-anticipated reprint of Sounds Like Home. Instead, Wilder decided to play with elements of Wright’s Carolina heritage for a cover that subtly conveys the memoir’s strong sense of place.

For the final episode of Spine Season 1 we speak with Australian Book Cover Designer, Alissa Dinallo. Alissa has won many design awards including The Australian Book Design Association (ABDA) Award for Young Designer of the Year in 2015. Alissa discusses with us the catalog she created for ABDA, her illustration technique, and her lifelong love for William Morris.