Cover Photo: Designing the Cover for Peter Orner’s AM I ALONE HERE? by Charlotte Strick and Claire Williams Martinez
 

Designing the Cover for Peter Orner’s AM I ALONE HERE?

“It often takes designers and family to make a book cover.”

Peter Orner’s book, Am I Alone Here?  is a collection of forty-one longform “notes” about reading and life, all of which illustrate his belief that “Stories, both my own and those I’ve taken to heart, make up whoever it is that I’ve become.” It’s a beautifully written book offered up to those among us who are equally voracious readers, especially of literary fiction. 

Each chapter centers on a single book that holds a unique place in Orner’s heart. These chapters all open with a charmingly naive painting of the cover belonging to the edition on Orner’s own bookshelf, commissioned from the author’s own artist/writer brother, Eric Ornermaking the obsession a family affair.

We collaged together low-res bits and pieces to express our idea to the publisher, editor, and author. 

We all kept our fingers tightly crossed for a week, waiting on Peter Orner’s response. Finally his editor reported back to say that Orner “loved the cover,” but that he’d been “waffling on the red book binding." Luckily for us,  five-year-old daughter talked him into it! It often takes designers and family to make a book cover.

In March 2014, Charlotte Strick and Claire Williams Martinez formed the multidisciplinary design firm Strick&Williams. The partners bring to the studio sixteen years of experience working for publishers and design agencies, respectively. Strick&Williams collaborates with corporations, cultural institutions, and non-profits. Graphic Design USA named them in their “People to Watch for 2016” roundup.