6. Titles Galore and Cover Conundrums!

(Merywen from Ready Set Raglan)

Some of the most important (and fun!) elements of creating a book are deciding the title and thinking about how the cover will look! We thought it would be fun to share a little bit about these processes for Ready Set Raglan, and why we chose the options we did!

The Name Game!
When we say that the knitting community contributed enormously to the creation of Ready Set Raglan, we really mean it! In last week’s post, ‘Thanks to our Test Knitters’, we talk about how 100+ people volunteered to test the pullover patterns we published in the book. Similarly, when we talk about the book’s title we can’t do so without mentioning all the wonderful people who suggested so many brilliant names!

We count ourselves very lucky that we have lovely and loyal followers on Instagram. So when we were uncertain what to call our raglan pullover collection, we knew that our followers would have some clever and fresh ideas! We put a call out on Instagram, asking for name suggestions, with the promise that the winner would be awarded a free copy of the book with their name credited on the inside front cover!

In the end we were spoiled for choice, with nearly 300 delightful suggestions to choose from! It was tough to narrow it down, but we really loved two title suggestions in particular: Ready Set Raglan and Raglanthology! The Pom Team love a witty pun or a play on words, and our book certainly is an anthology of raglan pullover patterns. But we decided on Ready Set Raglan (suggested by @mckenzie.kozman) because it reflected how the pullovers were speedy knits, and we loved that this title sounded like an invitation or a challenge to a new knitter! What’s more, Ready Set Raglan is designed to be a follow-on book from Knit How, our beginner’s guide to knitting. The last paragraph of the final section in Knit How is titled ‘Ready, Set, Go!’, so Ready Set Raglan also echoed the continuity between the books – it was fate! But as you can see from the images of draft covers below, it was a very close call, as we mocked up both titles on the front of the book with different images!

(Eila from Ready Set Raglan)

Which Cover?
Like with the book’s title, we had a tricky job choosing between these cover options! Let’s walk you through why we settled on the version with Elowen on the front. A big thank you to Mary and Dan at Bless, our ever-patient design and layout team, who made every single tweak we requested!

• We LOVED this photo of Nyome, and we often opt for cover photos in which the model is looking straight into the lens of the camera!
• This image shows off the detail of the raglan faux seam beautifully.
• We decided against this image in the end because Nyome was our sole model for another publication by Pom Pom Press, Knitting Outside the Box: Drape and Fold by Bristol Ivy! As Ready Set Raglan is a follow-on from Knit How, we didn’t want readers (or passers by!) to get confused between the two publications.
  
  

• The major pro of this photo was that it captured the fact that Ready Set Raglan contains many different variations on the classic raglan pullover design!
• We played with the title here. We wanted to make the connection between Knit How and this book as obvious as possible, but ultimately we decided that the style of the book with its tutorials and colourful pages would signal this clearly enough, without spelling it out in the title.
• Text on knitted stitches affects the legibility.
• We tend to prefer photos where the knitwear is modelled – somehow the garments are more dynamic and exciting when worn!

• We thought this photo was incredibly striking, and the sort of photo that might make a someone reach for the book if they saw it on a shelf.
• The details on the pullover are super clear, particularly the faux raglan seam.
• The mohair looks so soft and fluffy, which we love!
• Although we adore this photo, we were a little worried that it didn’t quite capture the fun and playful nature of the book, and ideally we wanted a photo with a light background behind the model to mirror the visual language of Knit How.

• The raglan seam is a prominent feature in this photo, and we loved how the seam almost guides your eyes to the title, so thumbs up there!
• The ribbed pattern indicates that the book contains designs which are a modern, fresh twist on the classic raglan pullover!
• It speaks to the front cover of Knit How!

For us, this option ticked all the important boxes!

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We hope you found these insights into our decision making process interesting! If you missed one of the previous stories in our ’12 Weeks of Raglan’ series, you can catch up here!