Designing "For The Love"
When Dallas writer Jason Hensel pitched us a book chronicling the 20-year history of Deep Ellum's Kettle Art Gallery, it didn't take long for us to see the vision, get excited (VERY excited!) and get on board with Jason to make the book a reality.
Books come to us in many ways. This one, like Jeffie Brewer's Joy Machine, was an idea—a blank canvas. Books at the idea phase are a lot of work, but they are also really exciting to produce! Like any blank canvas, it can become anything. We spent time with Jason defining a synopsis, perspective and light narrative structure for the book. When we were confident that we had something not just good, but really good, we took the idea to Kettle founder Frank Campagna, a long conversation that took place mostly on the sidewalk on a freezing cold, windy January morning. We're so fortunate that Frank, and Paula Harris, liked the idea as much as we did, and were willing to be close and enthusiastic collaborators.
We took some time gathering information: interviews with Frank and Paula, responses from Kettle artists, and essays, thoughts and memorabilia of all kinds from city leaders, community advocates and other important voices in Kettle Art's long history. This information moved the book from an idea, and shaped what it could actually be.
When it came time to choose the book's title, it was pretty easy to narrow it down to three or four strong contenders. But Jason and the K.Co team kept returning to one. As Jason mentioned in his process article, in his interviews and conversations one event repeatedly came up in conversation: "For The Love Of Kettle," an annual fundraising event hosted by the gallery each February, which is always followed by "For The Love Of Artists," celebrating art donors, a week later. But even beyond those events, love has a been a clear through-line in both Kettle's history and the book's content. People love the gallery, they love Frank, Paula and its other people. They love art. They love being in the gallery, a place many say feels like home. They love the stories it has inspired, and the opportunities it has given. They love the community.
So, "For The Love" became the front-runner and a natural choice for the book's title. The only choice, really. Not tied to the specific events, although they are very special. But tied to everything the gallery represents.
From a design perspective, we were inspired by Kettle Art's aesthetic, and pulled out some colors and a font choice with just enough grit. We wanted to give the idea of a zine or old-school publication, but keep it elevated to match the beautiful, professional art that the book will contain. We started out with Kettle's logo much more prominent, but after some discussion, faded it just a bit. The word LOVE intentionally tumbles off the page, because it's an idea that is hard to contain, even in 150+pages between book covers.
"For The Love," a cultural, narrative history of Kettle Art Gallery by Jason Hensel will be published December 9 by Dallas art book publisher K.Co Press. Preorders open in October. More information is available here.