Cover Designs

It all starts with a blank document

Every year I am asked to create the cover art for two books that are published in the late summer. The cover featured above is a book that contains the names of all 16,000 Semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program. The initial pages are typeset in InDesign and the lists of names are generated by our database. Months and months of work go into creating this book alone.

Each name is looked at to ensure that what the student gridded in their answer sheet is accurate. This process takes week to accomplish with our three person department and it all leads up to a massive mailing to 20,000 high schools and nearly 2,000 colleges.

We work with a local printer to complete the printing of the book and a local mail house prepares the books for shipping all over the country.

It’s one of the more surreal things to see my designs in the hands of students who’s names are featured within it’s pages.

Along with this book we create a second smaller book that is 50 pages entirely typeset in InDesign.