Julene Harrison: designing The Borrower book cover

"As I hadn't been paper-cutting for very long - a little less than 2 years at time - I was very pleased and flattered when Random House approached me to create the UK cover for Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower. It was to be my third professional book cover.

I design my work on the computer before I cut anything, using the design and drawing program Adobe Photoshop to sketch and layout the design. With this cover the title was my starting point and everything else was designed around it. I am especially pleased with the bookshelf idea and the reading light. I feel it is simple but conveys the theme of the book.

As the sketch is digital the client is able to give feedback and request changes before the work is committed to paper. Once I have the go-ahead to cut the piece, the final thing I need to do is check that everything in the design is attached to something else. If I didn't do this the piece might fall apart on the cutting mat.

Cutting has become the easy part for me now; I have learned the easiest and quickest way to work around the design. I remove as few pieces of the waste paper as possible while I work. This helps the paper keep some integrity. It takes me one working day to cut an A4 design.

With this cover the paper-cut was photographed by Random House on top of an old book. I think it works really well!"

Find out more about Julene and her work at http://madebyjulene.com/