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This week, #Trending fell in love with the prereleased jacket art of author Kopano Matlwa’s upcoming novel Period Pain – the third from the writer of award-winning titles Coconut and Spilt Milk, which also got design updates.
Jacana’s publishing director, Maggie Davey, who oversaw the design of the project and teaches a course on book design at Wits University, said that one of the starting points was the work of Nigerian photographer JD ’Okhai Ojeikere, and the angles he employed when photographing women’s hairstyles.
“It was tempting for us all to look back at the cover of Coconut and to take that as a jumping-off point in terms of design,” Davey told #Trending.
She worked with designer Russell Stark, who previously designed Coconut.
“The cover was so well-known that we could have worked up Spilt Milk and Period Pain in that same look and feel. It dawned on us, however, that Coconut was published nearly 10 years ago, and that we really needed to take into account both Kopano as a writer now and the writer that she was nine years ago. Bridget Impey, Jacana’s managing director, suggested that the designer look at hairstyles over the intervening years. It would also be a nod in the direction of the cover of Coconut, which was a silhouette of a woman’s face and shoulders.”
The relationship between an author and their book designer is the stuff of literary legend, fraught with intense struggles. At Jacana, it is a delicate operation.
“The author gives their input, especially at the beginning of the process, when we are looking for images as a place to start,” Davey explains. “Thereafter, we revert to the author once we are satisfied with a few directions that the cover might take, and then hear their feedback. Cover design is an alchemy; we tinker with the process and hope that magic will emerge.”
* Keep your eyes out for Period Pain’s release in October
