Sometimes I get challenging cover requests, The Highs and Lows of My Infertility Book Cover Design was one of those. To be honest, I struggled with the best way to implement an effective design for such a serious topic in a way that hadn’t been done before, and that would reflect the author’s message in a way that was a light-hearted take on a heavy topic.
Bianca connected with me during 2019 to design the cover for her book, The Highs and Lows of My Infertility. It’s a collection of blog posts about her trials and struggles on her IVF journey, to surrogacy. I had already worked with her the previous year on branding for an online business she had launched, which was what led to me working on this project too.
The Brief
In her brief, Bianca described what she wanted the cover to communicate “… the rollercoaster of trying to conceive. A mix of positivity and struggle. Excitement and crushing blows. But through it all keeping my eye on the prize and persevering, moving the mountain and making a way when there seemed to be no way. And eventually opening myself up to other possibilities of becoming a mom, ie. finally surrogacy. The feeling I would like to invoke is joining me on my journey – cry with me, be happy with me, cheer me on and celebrate at the end. Also for those in similar shoes to feel encouraged.”
Scope of work for this project was just the front cover design and a mockup that Bianca could use for promotions. No typesetting or book design was done.
This project was a while back so I don’t remember the details of my process for this, but I do remember having to sit down and think about it for longer than usual. I also read the entire book before getting onto concepts and sketches.