Art Director & Designer: David Tann
Photography: Roo Way
Notes about the book design
As a member of the faculty at Portfolio Center, in Atlanta, Georgia, I was fortunate to have access to both the extraordinary talents of the school’s students and the indefatigable guidance of Hank Richardson, its dynamic president. Under Hank’s tutelage, David Tann, now in his second year of the program, designed the cover and set the type.
David was given the manuscript in June. He pored over the poems for two months before availing himself of old family photos and letters that we dragged out of my garage. In mid-August, with an idea in mind, he called his Portfolio Center classmate, photographer, Roo Way, to set up a shoot, and they asked me to bring my three-year-old, Lola, to Kennesaw Mountain on a Saturday morning.
Roo took the black and white shot with a 4x5 camera, and David added color to give it the appearance of an old photograph that had faded over time. He then subtly inlaid into the image the cursive text scanned from a letter my father wrote to my mother a month after they were married and while he was in the Air Force.
Here is what David had to say to the publishers about his concept: “Because Tania’s poetry is so personal and speaks so much of her individual life experiences, the cover acts as a bookend, bringing together that which is responsible for her conception with that which will carry on her legacy.”
When I see the cover, though, I think of my father as a teenaged newlywed, madly in love with my mother, back when it was still possible he could turn out to be a good man. And not only do I see my sweet elfin daughter, but also myself at three, on the edge, about to be pushed out of innocence.
That is where the poetry begins.
-Tani Rochelle
As a member of the faculty at Portfolio Center, in Atlanta, Georgia, I was fortunate to have access to both the extraordinary talents of the school’s students and the indefatigable guidance of Hank Richardson, its dynamic president. Under Hank’s tutelage, David Tann, now in his second year of the program, designed the cover and set the type.
David was given the manuscript in June. He pored over the poems for two months before availing himself of old family photos and letters that we dragged out of my garage. In mid-August, with an idea in mind, he called his Portfolio Center classmate, photographer, Roo Way, to set up a shoot, and they asked me to bring my three-year-old, Lola, to Kennesaw Mountain on a Saturday morning.
Roo took the black and white shot with a 4x5 camera, and David added color to give it the appearance of an old photograph that had faded over time. He then subtly inlaid into the image the cursive text scanned from a letter my father wrote to my mother a month after they were married and while he was in the Air Force.
Here is what David had to say to the publishers about his concept: “Because Tania’s poetry is so personal and speaks so much of her individual life experiences, the cover acts as a bookend, bringing together that which is responsible for her conception with that which will carry on her legacy.”
When I see the cover, though, I think of my father as a teenaged newlywed, madly in love with my mother, back when it was still possible he could turn out to be a good man. And not only do I see my sweet elfin daughter, but also myself at three, on the edge, about to be pushed out of innocence.
That is where the poetry begins.
-Tani Rochelle