Book Jacket Designs by Catherine Casalino
Judge a Book By Its Cover - Book Jacket Designs by Catherine Casalino
Bio:
Catherine Casalino is the principal and creative director of Casalino Design Inc, an independent design company in New York City focusing on book design, print, and branding. Casalino Design Inc’s clients include Penguin Random House, A+E Networks, Simon & Schuster, IBM, W. W. Norton, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Epic Media, Scribd, and The New York Times. Catherine has been working as an art director and designer in New York since 2003. Prior to opening Casalino Design in 2016, she worked in-house at Grand Central Publishing, Random House, and Simon & Schuster, and she began her career at Rodrigo Corral Design.
Her work has been recognized by numerous design organizations and publications—including AIGA, Print Magazine, the Type Directors Club, Communication Arts, Eye Magazine, and the New York Book Show. She chaired the Type Directors Club 64th Annual Competition in 2018, and has served as a judge for The Association of American University Presses annual show. She also is a guest lecturer at The School of Visual Arts and Pratt Institute in New York City.
Judge a Book By Its Cover - Book Jacket Designs by Catherine Casalino | Photo by Melanie Dunea
What inspired your design for your favorite book jacket?
[Misery, Suntup Editions]
When I’m designing a cover, I always start by reading the book and noting any interesting visuals or themes that come up. Stephen King’s Misery was an embarrassment of riches when it came to visuals—and one of the most powerful and omnipresent objects throughout the book is an old typewriter that Annie buys for Paul.
Cover images should work both aesthetically AND conceptually. A typewriter has so many beautiful physical elements— keys, hammers, paper, metal, typography, etc— but it also works so well as a symbol of the conflicts in Misery. It speaks to the idea of Paul as a writer and Annie’s obsession with his writing. And it speaks to Paul’s internal conflict of wanting to write in a new style, but being forced to work on the series that made him famous.
Another thing to keep in mind when designing a cover is, How does the story make you feel? What are the themes? Misery is terrifying because the villain, Annie, seems so ordinary with her love of romance novels and her sweaters. There’s this theme of “obsession can turn anyone into a villain.” So giving the cover an unexpected, threatening vibe was very important.
While I worked with other typewriter elements in the early stages of designing this cover—keys, typewritten paper, etc— the metal hammers felt the most interesting. To give these small, ordinary objects a real weight and menacing quality, I photographed them with a macro lens so that they felt huge.
This is one of my favorite designs because I loved the challenge of coming up with a fresh design for such a well-known and well-loved book. I’m also so happy when I am able to pull off a design that uses type as image (as opposed to type laid over an image).
Judge a Book By Its Cover - Book Jacket Designs by Catherine Casalino
Other book jackets by Catherine Casalino:
Judge a Book By Its Cover - Book Jacket Designs by Catherine Casalino
Judge a Book By Its Cover - Book Jacket Designs by Catherine Casalino
Judge a Book By Its Cover - Book Jacket Designs by Catherine Casalino
Artwork by Catherine Casalino:
A few years ago I did an op-ed style illustration project based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass. I did it as part of the 100 day project— so I did one illustration a day for 100 days. These are a few of my favorites. It was a really fun exercise and something I highly recommend for any creatives out there!
Find more from Catherine Casalino, here:
Website: http://www.catherinecasalino.com/
Instagram: @cat.casalino https://www.instagram.com/cat.casalino/
Twitter: @C_Casalino https://twitter.com/C_Casalino
