Led brand development for God Hears Her, a women’s media brand, from initial research through to full implementation. Conducted in-depth audience research to define the brand’s core demographic and crafted both the visual identity and brand voice to resonate authentically. Developed a cohesive strategy that guided visual and verbal elements, ensuring consistency across print, media, and social channels. My work established the brand’s foundation, allowing for impactful engagement in every customer interaction.

Dangerous Territory: An Inquiry into Everything I Thought I Knew about Faith, Love, and Saving the World

Heather Dean Brewer, Art Director and Designer

Paperback and Audiobook editions

Heather Brewer, Art Director
Rode Pannell, Associate Art Director
Molly Jacques, Illustrator

The Process

One of the questions I get asked about frequently is the cover process. Because it is developed “in-house,” it’s a mystery to those outside of the publishing industry, even to the authors whose books we are packaging.

I am a strategy-based designer and art director, so I begin my development process by asking a lot of questions to the marketing and editorial teams in order to learn as much as I can about Voice, Content, Audience, and Message Prioritization.

1) Voice reflects the tone of the author’s writing. Is it conversational? Academic? Lyrical? It’s important to reflect the accurate mood in the design to not only attract the right audience but set the stage for the reading experience.

2) Content refers to the topic and highlights key or unique selling points. In the case of WOMEN OF THE BIBLE SPEAK OUT, the content is unique in that it’s a Bible Study written from the perspective of Biblical women. The opening sentence is powerful, and spoken in the voice of Eve, “I was there when everything was perfect. I opened my eyes for the first time to a clear blue sky, kind animals, and a man who loved me, respected me, and treated me as an equal. I was equal, in every way.”

My challenge was to capture that powerful, first-person experience and convey that in the cover art. We did that by using the profile of a woman with a bold message that seems to be bursting to get out into the world.

3) Knowing the primary audience the author is speaking to and who the sales team can reach, is key to determining the style of art, color palates, typography, and imagery. In this case, women ages 35-55 are the core audience. I chose to pursue an illustrated, hand-lettered style that has had a long and steady trend among this demographic.

4) Message Prioritization refers to the key messages we hope to get across to our audience. For WOMEN OF THE BIBLE SPEAK OUT, the key phrases or messages I needed the art to convey were:

1) Bible Times (Women of the Bible)
2) Relevant for women today

The woman’s profile reflects what we’d imagine a Biblical woman’s profile to be and we’ve combined that with line embellishments inspired by ancient Jewish art. We’ve given these ancient images a contemporary twist by using modern illustration styles and a contemporary, sophisticated color palate.

Covers can often go through many phases and drafts in development to get the perfect art that achieves accurately and elegantly hitting all of the key objectives. In this portfolio, I’ve shared just a small selection of images from the process.

This is the second edition of our highly popular Our Daily Bread for Kids. I was the Art Director for design and illustration.

Heather Brewer
Art Director + Designer

Team:
Heather Brewer, Print Art Director
Jeremy Culp, Digital Art Director
Aubree Burg, Digital Designer
McKenna McIntyre, Digital Designer

“Heather consistently delivers professional, strategic designs that zero in on the target audience and delight authors. Her work has resulted in a measurable increase in sales and helped take our publishing house to the next level.”— Miranda Gardner, Executive Editor, Discovery House

Job: Repackaging of a classic title that’s been around over 75 years.

Challenges:
1) Over 20 skus available in many different designs—confusing our audience and cannibalizing our own sales.
2) Keep a look that was familiar to our audience, but felt fresh.
3) Design had to work across digital and print platforms.

Solutions:
1) I recommended we conduct a full inventory of our MUFHH product offerings. We narrowed our products down to from twenty to six, offering an Updated and Classic edition at 3 different price points.
2) We stuck to similar colors that had been used on previous editions (green and red) but used an updated, brighter version. Stacked the title in the traditional four lines, but used a more vertical font that commands more presence. The jewel-tones offset by the white gives it a fresh look and modern appearance while also retaining a classic look that will remain relevant for a long time.
3) Collaborated with the digital art director and design team to ensure icons, typography, and imagery would work well in print and online.

Results: Increased sales by over 30%, and because we had less skus behind the sales, we made bestseller lists giving us more visibility across platforms.

REDESIGNING A CLASSIC by Heather Brewer

There is a certain amount of hesitation and caution that comes when rebranding a long-standing and successful product, especially when you aren't the owner of that product, but a trusted steward. It was a challenge I embraced, a balancing act between honoring a century-long past while carrying forward a message for generations yet to come.

Sales increased 19% after launch of rebrand.

2017 is the 100th anniversary of the passing of Oswald Chambers, a heavy-weight in Christian culture and theology. It also marks the beginning of Biddy Chambers' work collecting his writings into what is known today as one of the best selling devotionals of all time, My Utmost for His Highest.

To commemorate this classic and relevant devotional, Discovery House undertook a brand overhaul across digital and print platforms. I had the privilege and responsibility to Art Direct the new designs and book packaging.

I chose a serif font to retain a classic feel and kept the stacking of words as they had been presented in previous editions. The new font has a vertical presence that better fills the cover space and gives greater prominence to the title. Now the title visually reaffirms the concept of ‘utmost’ and ‘highest.’

My Utmost for His Highest has been around for over seventy-five years, kept on millions of nightstands or carried in briefcases for easy access and daily readings. Today, My Utmost is available as an app and is read by thousands of people online. It was important to myself and the Digital Art Director, Jeremy Culp, to create a seamless user experience across digital and print platforms. In order to accomplish this goal, we needed to develop a visual image that could be used both in social media and applied to print products.

The previous icon was a place-holder that didn't represent the message of Oswald Chambers or recreate successfully when applied to print. We needed something that looked good digitally, but could hold it's weight on a cover. The imagery of a path and a mountain show the journey Chambers' inspires his reader to take toward greater faith, accountability, and leadership over the course of a year. This icon is used for social media and is incorporated in the design of the paperback and hardcover editions.

A common misconception about Oswald Chambers is that he was a dusty, old scholar. In fact, he was an adventurous, world-traveling young man who died in his early forties while stationed in Egypt. In creating the jacket art for the hardcover, I wanted to challenge people's perception of Chambers and included a photo of him that hadn't been commonly circulated, one that captured the curiosity and determination of youth.

It was an honor to work on something that has impacted millions of lives and it is my hope that it will continue to impact lives for decades to come.

Heather Brewer, Art Director
Steve Gier, Designer

Job: Repackage books by Oswald Chambers

Challenges:
1) OC has over twenty books that needed new covers with limited resources (budget and short turnaround).
2) How do we make 75-year old books feel relevant?

Solutions & Opportunities:
1) Create a template-style design that would allow for many variations, easily applied by multiple designers.
2) Two years ago, we’d redesigned OC’s most famous book, My Utmost for His Highest. Using that highly successful project as a template, we could visually connect his other titles, giving them context and relevancy for a new audience.

Illustrator: Adam Turman

Heather Brewer, Art Director
Laura Klynstra, GOD HEARS HER Designer
Thinkpen Design, STAND STRONG Designer

Over 100,00 copies sold.

Heather Brewer, Art Director

Book Packaging for Baker Publishing Group and Discovery House, 2017-2018.

Heather Brewer, Art Director & Co-Author
Steliyana Doneva, Illustrator
Andy Rogers, Editor

“Heather brings an invaluable level of expertise to any publishing team. She’s a strategist and a team player that has experience in numerous roles – as artist & illustrator, writer & author, editor, art designer, and project manager. I’ve worked with Heather on multiple projects and will jump at the chance to do so again.”—Andy Rogers, Acquisitions Editor, HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Zondervan

Heather Brewer, Art Director
Kris Nelson, Associate Art Director
Glenys Nellist, Author
Lizzie Walkley, Illustrator

“I have had the absolute pleasure and privilege of watching Heather bring my stories to life. In her role as Art Director she is able to visualize how a book should be designed and has the ability, not only to choose the best illustrator, but also to direct them to achieve that goal. From cover to cover and every page in between, my children’s books are a delight to see. I credit Heather for that. She is artistic, visionary and creative. Heather is one of the best. ”— Glenys Nellist, bestselling children's author

Heather Brewer, Art Director & Macro Editing
Kris Nelson, Associate Art Director
Glenys Nellist, Author
Lizzie Walkley, Illustrator

Heather Brewer, Art Director & Designer

Heather Brewer, Art Director
Grey Matter Group, Associate Art Direction

Our team creates a minimum of 36 insert catalogs annually on top of an ever increasing and demanding work load. Asked to do more, make more, create more, with less time, money, and resources we had to invent a new way to create a better customer journey and continue to support our direct marketing needs in a fraction of the time. This is how we did it.

Heather Brewer, Art Director
Rode Pannel, Designer
Sam Carbaugh, XML Designer

Giving Tuesday is an annual campaign that brings in important donations to fund ministry initiatives throughout the year and across the globe. Digital Design was the lead for the logo and overall look, I carried out the design in our print pieces to make something that was striking and would draw the attention of our audience when they collected their mail. It was important to indicate right away that this was a unique mailing and a special initiative.

Heather Brewer, Designer/Art Director
Jeremy Culp, Art Director Digital Campaign
Aubree Burg, Digital Designer

Heather Brewer, Designer and Content Creator with assistance from Educator Melanie Ver Duin

Heather Brewer, Art Director and Designer

This project is for Biologos, a client of Bracket Publishing. This unique high school curriculum is an interactive, downloadable PDF that is designed to be used on tablets and laptops, can be printed at home, and combined to create a single book for Biologos.

Because of the multiple formats that this project will take and the unique needs of the user based on whether they’re using the print or digital versions, I had to consider competing factors in how the information would ultimately be presented.

Heather Brewer, Illustrator & Designer
Developed for North Muskegon Public Schools annual combined Holiday Concert

Heather Brewer, Art Director & Designer

Write copy and create design assets for Posters, Social Media, Website, and Sponsorship Flyers.

I approached the campaign from four key strategy angles:
1) Felt need of target audience—women looking to improve themselves, their work, and their community.
2) Educate and inform audiences about keynote speaker.
3) Highlight that this is an important and growing event not to be missed.
4) Drive audiences to registration (call to action)