Gracing Book Cover & Interior

Interior photos of “Gracing” are coming soon! Check back here in a week for a full look at the book. “Gracing” is a book by Hannah Packard Crowther published through Faith Matters. In this book Hannah explores what it would mean to live an abundant, nourishing, and down-to-earth spiritual life. Coined ‘gracing’, this way of being blurs the boundaries between holiness and the mundane, between a future paradise and a present one. In the book she uses the ideas of collecting the attributes of gracing like one collects seashells at the beach. 

As we began exploring the look & feel for her book we loved this idea of the sea shell collection and wanted to include that in the design. We commissioned J. Kirk Richards to paint a series of 14 watercolor seashells that we would include, embedded in the type, in the opening of each chapter. I also designed the cover to include these shells, to give a nod to what was inside the book. When the front and back cover and the French folds are completely unfolded you can see the entire collection of sea shells. As for typography we used Maria Doreuli’s typeface William, a modern interpretation of Caslon that includes a higher x-height and Text, Subhead and Display versions of the typeface. We liked this typeface for its legibility, cleanliness, and timeless quality, which helped to vocalize the timeless quality of gracing. Paired with GT America for the subheads and reflection section of the book, we also implemented some of the ornament features of William throughout the book, primarily using an dotted DNA style pattern that alluded to the pattern that is left by ocean waves on the sea shore. I also designed a custom arrow based on the DNA pattern for the footnotes.