Josh Frederick - Book Cover & Interior Design

Just got back from an amazing couple weeks in England. Books are everywhere! had some amazing pieces on the art of the book throughout history including contemporary book arts pieces. Can’t wait to go back!

Another rejected concept for An Insider’s Perspective on the Chief of Staff.

Rejected concept for “An Insider’s Perspective on the Chief of Staff”.

had so much fun working on this cover! It’s full of some great info, and always love being able to collaborate with my authors on ideas for the cover. For this one, the author loves chess and described the Chief of Staff role as the knight in the board. An important piece that stands and supports the king. Check it out on Amazon!

Month 4 is coming to a close and the theme is Nursery.

I was stuck in what to do with this theme, and I decided to pull from what inspires me creatively, and make it an homage to what got me into reading and the world of books… fairy tales!

Fairy tales are some of the earliest stories I remember reading, and the one I chose is by a favourite author, Oscar Wilde.

The Nightingale and the Rose is a beautiful, but mildly depressing fairy tale about a nightingale helping a young man find a rose to give to his love.

I used art nouveau illustrations from the great Kay Nielsen to give it a true fairy tale feel. I also dried and pressed roses from my garden to incorporate into the book.

The book is a concertina using boards and connected with bookcloth hinges.

I didn’t have room to take a full picture of it unfolded, but I love that it becomes a full panorama.

“Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sang of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.”

There’s a lot of talk of banning books in our libraries and schools in the US. So I wanted to read through some famous cases and design some covers for them.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by DH Lawrence. Publication was banned in the USA till 1959 when the publisher took the USPS to court for confiscating uncensored copies of the book. The defense quoted a Supreme Court Justice who opined that the First Amendment was to protect “all ideas… unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion.”

The Art of Beer Design by Brady Fox

I love books, but it’s all about the movies tonight.

Movies are a huge source of inspiration for me, and every year I love watching the Oscars to get inspired and look back on another amazing year of film.

This is my second year doing a series of tribute book covers of the Best Picture nominees. We’re one day away from the Oscars and I’m almost done with the series! This is one of two movies this year adapted from a novel. All Quiet on the Western Front is the second film adaptation of the novel by Erich Maria Remarque.

Movies are a huge source of inspiration for me, and every year I love watching the Oscars to get inspired and look back on another amazing year of film.

This is my second year doing a series of tribute book covers of the Best Picture nominees. We’re one day away from the Oscars and I’m almost done with the series! The last 2 are the only Best Picture nominees based on an actual book. I have not read Miriam Toews’ novel Women Talking, but after watching this heart-wrenching film by Sarah Polley it’s at the top of my list.

This is a movie not a lot of people are talking about out of these 10, but is definitely one to watch and an important film.

Movies are a huge source of inspiration for me, and every year I love watching the Oscars to get inspired and look back on another amazing year of film.

This is my second year doing a series of tribute book covers of the Best Picture nominees. We’re almost to Sunday, and just a few more to go! This movie is one of my favorites from this year, Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans.

Movies are a huge source of inspiration for me, and every year I love watching the Oscars to get inspired and look back on another amazing year of film.

This is my second year doing a series of tribute book covers of the Best Picture nominees. Number 7 is the jaw-droppingly beautiful Avatar: The Way of Water.

The film is beautiful, and I wanted to go a little left-field with the cover. I kept things minimal and quiet, inspired by the quote from the movie, “the way of water has no beginning and no end”. From different perspectives, you could be diving further into the water or floating on the surface looking at the night sky.

Movies are a huge source of inspiration for me, and every year I love watching the Oscars to get inspired and look back on another amazing year of film.

This is my second year doing a series of tribute book covers of the Best Picture nominees. And number 6 is Tár.

The film is an incredible look at the connection between art and artists, cancel culture, and power. One thing that was fascinating about this film was its marketing campaign which presented the main character as a real person and the film as a “biopic”. I carried that concept through to the cover, as the “authorized biography”. I kept things minimal to reflect the minimal style of the movie. The black and white palette is a reflection of the conductor’s tuxedo, and the only imagery is a raised baton ready to start the orchestra.

Movies are a huge source of inspiration for me, and every year I love watching the to get inspired and look back on another amazing year of film.

This is my second year doing a series of tribute book covers of the Best Picture nominees. And this next one is Top Gun: Maverick.

Movies are a huge source of inspiration for me, and every year I love watching The Oscars to get inspired and look back on another amazing year of film.

This is my second year doing a series of self-study tribute book covers of the Best Picture nominees. And I had so much fun making this one for Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.

I started off by wanting to visually reference 2 motifs from the film, the google eyes and the Everything bagel. I painted a (stale) everything bagel black, printed it, and rescanned the image to get a funky analog look to the image. The everything bagel sucks in everything like a black hole, and to allude to the multiverse aspect, I set the title in different fonts and warped it showing it get sucked into the bagel.

February is coming to a close and I finished my entry for the challenge with the theme of Constellations.

I wanted to explore the same concept as last month of creative expression and voice.

Gemini is the twin constellation. The Greeks saw Castor and Pollux as guardians and guides for sailors. The constellation is also my star sign. The twins are evoked in the double-sided accordion fold bind. The length and handmade cloth paper creates a scroll-like map bringing the reader along the journey. The covers are twins and opposites with the constellation applied in gold foil.

On the inside, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s translation of Homer's Hymn To Castor And Pollux and Walt Whitman’s As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life are transcribed on each side with a dip pen.

“The sailors rest, rejoicing in the sight,
And plough the quiet sea in safe delight.”

Movies are a huge source of inspiration for me, and every year I love watching the to get inspired and look back on another amazing year of film.

This is my second year doing a series of tribute book covers of the Best Picture nominees. And this next one is Triangle of Sadness.

The film was so fascinating and an amazing commentary in class and power. It’s another original screenplay, but I looked to the theme of the story and it’s inversion of power for inspiration. The clip in the beginning shows some quick photos, to give a glimpse into imagery exploration that goes into a design. I chose a golden toilet, playing to the power flip we see in the movie, as well as alluding to a pinnacle—and disgusting—part of the story.

Also, Dolly de Leon is the first Filipino to be nominated for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress! 🇵🇭

Movies are a huge source of inspiration for me, and every year I love watching the to get inspired and look back on another amazing year of film.

This is my second year doing a series of tribute book covers of the Best Picture nominees. And this next one is the flashy and incredible Elvis, directed by Baz Luhrmann.

I’ve been a fan of Elvis for a while, always trying to thrift a vinyl copy when I can. Austin Butler gave a great performance as the King. Baz Luhrmann’s direction, as always, was kinetic and maximalist, which I love. We’re in an era where “less is more” is popular, so I love seeing other creatives flood our senses with color, light, and movement.

This was a hard one to sort out, because my concept of this series is a what if these movies were books. If this movie was a book, there would be no actor. I wanted to find a way to embrace both of those aspects. In the opening clip, the singing is from the actor, Austin Butler, but it transitions to Elvis’ actual voice, this was a technique Luhrmann used throughout the film, so I took that idea and used it for the cover imagery. A shot from the film that is obscuring facial features, the physical body is Butler, but it’s also all Elvis. The typography is traced from a 1970s issue of King Elvis that I thrifted. I wanted a way to integrate Elvis’ actual history through a fan magazine into this movie/book. I left the roughness of the lines to add texture and contrast with, what I imagine to be, gold embossing.

Movies are a huge source of inspiration for me, and every year I love watching the Oscars to get inspired and look back on another amazing year of film.

This is my second year doing a series of tribute book covers of the Best Picture nominees. And first up is one of my favorites The Banshees of Inisherin.

The film is beautifully shot with amazing performances from the entire cast. It’s an original screenplay, so no book to go off of, so I looked to the cinematography for visual inspiration. I decided on a photo showing Jenny the donkey, since she’s at the emotional core of the story. I separated the text of the title to show the separation of the characters and cut off parts of the ascenders of the letters (5 to be exact, if you know, you know).

This was a fun cover to work on. A financial book for women of all ages. We went with a mood/vision board approach, trying to keep it from feeling like a typical finance book. Went through several different approaches before settling on this direction, may share those later.

Book cover for
CD: David Taylor

This is my first year doing the Are You Book Enough challenges by and this month the challenge is exploring the theme of Expectations.

My concept is like flowers in spring, but it was still fun to make something and experiment a little.

I approached Expectations from the point of view of what people expect of us, or how we view people’s expectations to be and how isolating at times it may feel to not live up to them. So, I created a book that is designed to not be opened. It looks and feels like a typical notebook, but it’s sewn shut. When you think you don’t live up to society’s or other people’s expectations it’s easy to feel like the only book on the shelf that doesn’t open. The odd one out.

It’s been fun seeing people’s immediate reaction to it in person. They try to open it, a brief look of confusion while they turn it around looking for a clasp or release.

There’s a new challenger every month, and I’m looking forward to experimenting more and getting deeper into some book arts!

Coming Soon.

“What gunpowder did for war, the printing press has done for the mind.” — Wendell Phillips

“Can one love another, pleading;
for love in return;
without knowing,
how to love themselves?”

Since working remotely with authors all over the country, I don’t often get the chance to meet them in person. I’m so glad I was able to meet the amazing poet and writer right here in Greenville!
Bare: The Adages of Lady June is out now on Amazon and to your TBR list.

“The example of others can encourage those who only fear to begin.”
— José Rizal