Killed Covers: A book designer’s guide to rejection
Jennifer Griffiths
About this video
Description
For designers, rejection is inextricably linked with the creative process. This is especially true for book cover design. Jennifer explores the emotional rollercoaster of having your work turned down repeatedly. The painful experience of a design being loved to death through a thousand tweaks. The betrayal of having the client choose the ‘wrong’ option. Where does the motivation come from to pick yourself up and carry on after the 10th round? How do you know when to fight for a design and when to move on? Can rejection ever be a good thing?
Jennifer Griffiths
Jennifer studied communication design at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, where her final project reimagined Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary as a contemporary coffee table book.
After graduating, Jennifer worked at design studios focusing primarily on branding projects. In 2013, she began working on interior typesetting, which naturally evolved into full cover and interior book design. After several years freelancing, she joined Penguin Random House Canada in 2016, where she currently works as a senior book designer.
Having been in the industry for over a decade, Jennifer has designed covers and interiors across almost every genre imaginable. She has worked on covers for many prominent Canadian authors, including Michael Ondaatje, Anne Michaels, Michael Redhill and Madeleine Thien.
