Meet the designer: Erin K Pille
As we're working away at redesigning the covers of Jabin Kainos, I wanted to introduce you all to Erin with a little Q&A.
The current major project on being a self-published author is updating the book covers of the Jabin Kainos series. Beginning about a year ago, I’ve been in talks with Erin for about a year. An amazing designer and fellow believer, I encourage you all to check out her website for her whole portfolio and more. For now, enjoy the interview!
Tell us about yourself!
Hi pals! My name is Erin, and I’ve lived most of my life here in the Midwest, birthplace of the almighty casserole and the land of ranch dressing.
I’ve been a designer for nearly a decade now, and it’s a career that I’ve absolutely adored. I know that's a rare place to be, and I never want to take it for granted. Even now, sometimes I still can’t believe I get to click buttons, make cool things, and send little emails AND pay my bills.
Headshot provided by Erin K Pille
How did you start graphic design, and what inspired you to pursue this career?
I like to joke that I chose my career based on the one least likely to involve any math. And while it’s truer than I’d like to admit, it’s also a bit deeper than that.
“I create because I’ve been created, I design because I am designed.”
As a kid, I loved art in all forms: painting, drawing, music. I just loved creating. I remember even taking bars of soap and trying to carve them with an Exacto knife. (It will come as a surprise to exactly no one that it did not work. But the true surprise is that I still have all my fingers.)
After finishing high school, on somewhat of a whim, I signed up for an Intro to Graphic Design class at MCC. The very first day, the teacher opened by saying “Design is not about art. It’s not about making things pretty. Design always has a goal. Design communicates.”
And something just clicked in my brain. I knew that this was what I was meant to do. Like I was literally MADE for it. I grew up in a Christian home, I was taught that God had created the world and designed everything in it. But it wasn’t until I started to learn actual principles of design that this whole concept blew up in my brain and I began to see all these parallels in nature and graphic design: Hierarchy, Color Theory, Repetition, Negative Space, and countless others are all principles that can be observed in nature.
Stepping back even further, design is about communicating visually. When I make a logo, I’m communicating who that company is and what they do by the fonts, colors and shapes I use. When I make a book cover, I’m telling the first bit of the story by communicating the genre, the setting, and a bit of what the reader can expect to find inside. When God made the world, he was (and still is) communicating who He is.
How can we know that? Well, you can’t describe anything in nature without also describing attributes of God. Whether it’s the majesty of mountains, the wrath of a thunderstorm, the glory of a sunset, all those words describe the God who made it all. It all points to a Designer who is communicating a simple truth: “This is who I Am. This is who you worship.”
So, in my day to day life as a designer, this is what motivates and inspires my own work. I create because I’ve been created, I design because I am designed.
Do you have a favorite style or aesthetic that you like to incorporate into your designs? If so, what is it, and why do you gravitate towards it?
I love natural elements, vines, and leaves! They’re fun to draw and I love finding a visual balance in the flourishes and fine tuning. I also really like playing with different textures and how that can add depth to illustrations. For type styles and lettering, I love a good high-end looking serif, but prefer to draw scripty, calligraphic lettering because it’s flowy and relaxing.
Image taken from Erin’s Instagram
Are you an avid reader? What are your reading habits like?
I used to be! As a kid, I would get in trouble for reading too much and ignoring my chores, but these days, podcasts and audiobooks are now my books. Thanks internet.
How much of your design experience includes designing book covers? What is unique about designing a book cover over your other projects?
Including the 2 Kainos covers so far, I think I’ve done a total of 5 or 6? In my experience, book cover projects don’t come around too often, so it’s all the more reason to love them!
It’s usually an opportunity to do some cool typography work for the titles, and I love having a large amount of content to pull concepts from for my own visual connections. From a process standpoint, it doesn’t differ too much from doing a magazine or a newsletter cover, but there’s generally less content to lay out so that means more freedom to just make something cool!
What was your process for designing the covers for the Jabin Kainos series?
From the beginning, I had a pretty solid idea of the direction it would probably go, and that’s a really nice spot to be in! I just had a vibe of what I thought would work and then followed that.
For Book 1, I started reading with a notepad and writing down anything visual that felt like it was important to the storyline: items that lived in that world, colors of things, places, buildings, etc. And then from there, searched all those terms online to find more visuals, which then sparked other ideas and led to more sketches.
From there, I narrowed it down to my favorite concepts, sent those over for review and then we went back and forth a bit, seeing what worked and tweaking what didn’t! We settled on a final sketch and from there, I cleaned up the linework, added colors and textures, and then we were done!
While primarily not a book cover designer, if you could redesign the covers of any book or series, what would it be, why, and how would you make it unique?
I love this question! It’s tough to say, but Chronicles of Narnia was the first series that comes to mind. Those books were so formative in my childhood. I would love to reimagine it in my own style and draw a little Puddleglum, or a Reepacheep. HOW FUN. Someone please commission me for THAT!
Having read the first two books of the Jabin Kainos series, who is your favorite character and why?
Slate for sure. He seems a little mysterious, but also knows how to take charge, and get things done! I always admire those sorts of characters because they are so different than me! I’m excited to see how the rest of the story plays out!
Having seen the covers Erin has created, I am so excited to bring the Jabin Kainos series not just to a close but to another level. If you haven’t read them and enjoy a good, clean sci-fi superhero story, I highly recommend checking them out through the button below.