The Barefoot Followers of Sweet Potato Grace (Lanternfish Press)
Category
Fiction
Year
2024
The Barefoot Followers of Sweet Potato Grace
by Megan Okonsky
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 Barefoot Followers of Sweet Potato Grace
The Barefoot Followers of Sweet Potato Grace is a coming-of-age story about being queer in a small town, while grieving a beloved cat, Sweet Potato Grace. It’s full of 70’s hippie flair and tender moments.
The Process
Interior Design & Typesetting
Because the cover was already finished when I started on the interior, I was able to use the cover design to guide the interior decisions.
To create a cohesive book design, I made decisions that would unite both the interior and exterior, such as choosing fonts that paired well with those used on the cover and using an asymmetrical layout.
Knowing that Lanternfish loves incorporating ornamentation in their books, I chose a flower to pair with chapter headings and to indicate section breaks.
The flower ornament compliments the bold running heads and chapter titles, and alludes to a 70s flower child/groovy vibe, complementing the book’s themes.
Because this book was quite long, I used typesetting techniques to make it a thinner book, which would help save on printing costs. For example, chapters start on right and left pages (instead of only right pages).