Behind the Cover: Maybe This Time
In MAYBE THIS TIME by Kasie West, Sophie works as a florist at every event in her hometown, arranging flowers at everything from weddings to funerals. But when a new boy enters the picture, her carefully-planned life gets complicated…
It’s the perfect rom-com to read this summer – and we can’t stop staring at the gorgeous cover!
Today we have Executive Art Director Yaffa Jaskoll joining us on the I read YA blog to tell us all about how this beautiful, summery cover came to life – and what it’s like behind-the-scenes on a cover shoot!
Yaffa Jaskoll, Executive Art Director
Hey! Our first step in creating a cover is coming up with the concept and getting it approved in-house before starting on anything else. We knew we wanted to feature flowers on the cover, and we thought having Sophie riding a bike would be a cute addition. We then work closely with the photography team, Michael Frost and Tanya Murray, who help transform our vision into a reality. They do everything from helping to find the models, getting the wardrobe/props, to scouting out for the perfect location.
The model agencies send over a bunch of model options that match the characters’ descriptions and we narrow them down by looking at the models’ portfolios and even their Instagram accounts! Once we pick the perfect models, we move on to picking the wardrobe (my favorite part!)
We bring a variety of clothing for the model to try on once we get on set. We wanted to make sure that the dress really popped against the green background, so we thought red would be the perfect color. The shoot was held outside, so we used Michael and Tanya’s van as our home base. Hair and makeup (done by Jose Rosello) happened inside the van (to take advantage of the a/c in the summer heat), the wardrobe hung in the back (so it didn’t wrinkle) and the van even converted to a changing room (once we pulled down the window shades).
Next it was all hands-on deck to help carry everything down to our desired location spot. We made sure to take anything we would need for the day (especially the flower crown!). Once the flower crown was secured, we were ready to shoot!
It’s important to shoot as many different options as possible, including shots with the boy character, Andrew, in case we wanted to show both characters together (which we used for the back cover!). Even though the model looks somewhat serious on the final front cover, the models definitely had fun getting into character and joking around in between takes.
Because we were shooting in a real park, there were people constantly walking through our shot (this makes shooting on location a little bit more challenging than shooting in a studio). We finally moved to a quieter spot in the park to avoid all the extra people around, which ended up producing the perfect cover!
Once the photo shoot is over, we look through hundreds of photos and narrow it down to our favorite. We then look at the final image and see if there is anything we can do to make it even better. For this cover, we realized the trees in the background were a little dull looking (and had that distracting dirt patch under the tree), so we photoshopped trees from a different photo that had better lighting coming through the branches and nicely framed the author’s name on the top. Lastly, we pumped up the overall colors and put the final little touches on the image. Can you spot all the differences?
Anyone a Kasie West fan? This is super cool ♥ You can put a hold on this title HERE!
