Jane & The Professor Book Cover (2024)
Ah yes, my other WIP novel that struggles to be born just had its 8 year anniversary. And to celebrate, I’ve decided to do a mock-up book cover to motivate me to work on it more often. The Eternal Recurrence of Sue Schuester story, I’m going through more of a “pantsing” process and freeing myself from worrying about messing things up later, just writing what I know. This story however? That’s another beast entirely. Here’s the gist of it: A man and a woman, struggling to manage their lives, fall in love against the backdrop of 1990s Washington DC. David, a young professor, is trying to deal with the emotional fallout of his divorce, while Jane, a workaday career woman, is trying to deal with her own self worth and success. Amidst family strife and the hustle of chocolate city, they try make their relationship work in spite of it all.
Despite what the title may suggest, it’s not a student-teacher thing; that’s more of a trick to get all the Coleen Hoover-type readers to read about the local history of our nation’s capital–devious, I know. However, the twist here is that for this cover in particular, I tried to emulate some of the rom-com movie posters, such as with Sleepless in Seattle or dramas such as A Room with a View, or more or less imitating the look of illustrated book covers of the 20th century by adjusting the threshold filter over each figure in the cover. The typography was the chief thing to get right here; I studied old advertisements from the 80s and 90s and pinpointed it down to Baskerville with the leading being extremely narrow, which resulted in a very nostalgic looking title. As for the two characters? I researched and narrowed down reference photos of two actors that I thought would suit the roles and photoshopped them to suit the appearances I had in mind.
I care about getting things right here; not only in the historical facts but also in the socio-cultural identity of the place and time. Is that too much overthinking for what is essentially a contemporary romance novel? Perhaps, but I’d like it to mean more than just that. So while the actual completion of this is probably years out, I hope to post updates on its progress as time goes by. Stay tuned.
