The Glass Garden

by Jessica Lévai

About the Client

Lanternfish Press

Lanternfish Press publishes rare and strange fiction that is both literary and speculative. They love the grotesque and are a home for writers and readers that refuse to be pigeonholed.

About the Book

The Glass Garden

Two sisters discover a mysterious, glowing anomaly in an underground cavern on a distant exoplanet. As they investigate, they are pulled into its unsettling gravity that neither sister understands nor can escape.

The Process

Interior Design & Typesetting

The book has a lot of botanic sci-fi imagery, but also has a humorous tone. It was fun to complement this book’s eerie plot with its lighthearted tone in the design choices.

The margin sizes, body font, font size, and space between the lines (leading) contribute to a readable line length and the interior looking similar to other Lanternfish titles and comparable books.

Lanternfish values ornamentation in their books, so I chose a flower ornament that connected with the botanic imagery in the book. Because of its asymmetry, it adds that strange, eerie quality while providing a nice contrast to the page.

I also included a drop cap for the chapter openers to complement the darkness of the ornament and add style to the page.

Because the cover was already finished, I used it as a reference when designing the interior.

I chose fonts that paired well with the cover but that were a bit more subtle to be better suited for the readability of the interior.

I also focused on symmetry in the layout, centering elements to create cohesion between cover and interior.

Credits

Cover Design Kimberly Glyder

Cover Image Susan Wilkinson

Interior Design and Typesetting Hadley Hendrix

Hadley is hands-down the most organized person I’ve ever worked with, and her design skills are top notch.

Christine Neulieb

Editorial Director at Lanternfish Press