ENDORSEMENTS
Greta Sibley’s eye is infallible, uniting the neat lines of classic design with the unexpected edge of the contemporary. In all uses, and from all angles, she has a respect for the nuance—and the power—of typography. Her design never overpowers content; nor is it subservient to it. Rather, her typographic design enhances every writer’s content so perfectly that readers are barely aware they are under the spell of so seamless a pairing.—
Christine Palm
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Author
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“What the Dead Know” (seven short films and a teacher’s guide)
ENDORSEMENTS
We knew we hired the right designer when Greta stepped into our very busy design department here at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Almost instantaneously, Greta became the go-to designer for a diverse list of titles ranging from politics to poetry. Her ability to create thoughtful and striking book interiors while working under strict deadlines and tight schedules was everything we could’ve asked for in a designer. Greta’s positive attitude, dedication, and enthusiasm really shine through in all her work.—
Brian Moore
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Associate Art Director, General Interest Trade
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Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ENDORSEMENTS
I had the pleasure of working with Greta Sibley for many years while I was director of design and production at Shambhala Publications. Greta is an imaginative and thorough designer who brings fresh ideas to her book design projects and works them carefully into all elements of the design. She is very easy to work with, listening with a critical ear to any suggestions I might make. She is also a meticulous typesetter, solving problems as they arise and not creating new ones. I recommend Greta wholeheartedly for anybody looking for a great freelance book designer.—
Steve Dyer
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Former Design Director
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Shambhala Publications
ENDORSEMENTS
Greta is a dream to work with as a designer: she is detail oriented and creative, and particularly adept at the subtle nuances of type and layout. It’s easy to layout an attractive spread with images, but infinitely more challenging to design a harmonious checklist or endnotes! I also appreciated her work on the production end—finding and supervising excellent printing is a skill set all its own. I can highly recommend Greta both for her design skills and for her creative and efficient professionalism. I enjoyed the process of working with her and the product was exactly the mix of elegance and readability required for the success of the project.—
Aprile Gallant
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Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
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Smith College Museum of Art
ENDORSEMENTS
I’m so grateful to Greta Sibley for her wonderful design work. Regicide in the Family: Finding John Dixwell is my first book, and thus I came to Greta with little knowledge of all that is involved in making a book appealing to the eye, beautiful and elegant. Over the months of bringing the design to completion she taught me so much! She listened carefully, respected my instincts, yet helped me see what was needed. She is marvelously patient, punctual, knowledgeable, and hard-working. She made my book a delight to hold, to leaf through, to read closely. She cared about every detail, and brought in other craftspersons with different areas of expertise when necessary. My decent photographs became jewel-like because of her insistence on getting them to be the best possible versions of themselves. I am so glad I found Greta Sibley.
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Sarah Dixwell Brown
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Author
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ENDORSEMENTS
Greta was able to take the request of “feminine country chic” and turn it into the perfect design of Chickens in the Road. The interior reflected the author’s expressive optimism, and the readership was delighted with the result.
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Nöel Chrisman
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Production Coordinator
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HarperOne Publishers
ENDORSEMENTS
Lucky is the person who hires Greta Sibley to design a book. She’s careful, reliable and patient. More than that, she has an eye and a hand that will turn an ordinary manuscript into a handsome book. That’s what she did for me with The Inner Sea.
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Zane Kotker
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Author
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Education
Playful Learning
Mariah Bruehl
Trumpeter
Set in Scala, Scala Sans, and Simpliciter Sans.
This book has just about everything: photographs, several levels of heads, sidebars, exercises, and pages to be reproduced and filled in by the reader. It is bright and playful and meant to elicit joy.
Eastern Art and Philosophy
The Illustrated Book of Five Rings
Miyamoto Musashi
Weatherhill
Set in Centaur.
Have you ever seen more elements on a 21st c. title page? Centaur felt like a good choice for this title in which the art is sophisticated and the pressure was on for the text to rise to the same level.
Memoir
The Lucky Ones
Mae Ngai
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
In this case, the jacket, designed by Nate Salciccioli, Faceout Studio, was available to me when I started the interior design. Whenever I can, I integrate cover and interior. The title page, part openers, and chapter openers of The Lucky Ones echo fonts and their styling from the cover.
Art
Angelic Mistakes
Roger Lipsey
New Seeds
Set in Fairfield.
My father started me reading Thomas Merton when I was in high school. What a privilege to design this book featuring the artwork of this rare and wonderful human being.
Book of Days
On the Wing
Gunilla Norris, Illustrated by Toinette Lippe
Andrews McMeel Publishing
Set in Requiem.
The design for this book of days needed to be light as a hummingbird. This led me to choose Requiem—with its very fine strokes—for our text as well as display. We used a PMS color for the thin green rules and display, and a combination of cyan and magenta for the blue elements. The commitment of all involved in this title brought it to its full expression.
Poetry
New and Selected Poems by Charles Simic
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Set in Bodoni and Nobel.
In this case, I took my inspiration from the fine cover design by Creative Director Michaela Sullivan.
Museum Exhibition Catalog
Drawn to Excellence
Smith College Museum of Art
Set in Requiem and Gotham.
What can I say? I want more assignments like this!
Memoir
I’ve Known Rivers
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot
A Merloyd Lawrence Book, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company
It is a treat when there is budget for creating ornaments. Stephanie Peterson Jones —mistress of patterns and many other types of illustration — did these. See About > Colleagues on this site for a link to Stephanie.
Eastern Art and Philosophy
The Art of War
Sun Tzu, translated by Thomas Cleary
Shambhala
Set in ITC Veljovic and Bickham Script.
One of the deep pleasures of working with Shambhala Publications is the opportunity to handle beautiful images of Asian art. One of the challenges is that this art comes in all shapes and sizes and media.
Young Readers Biography
Zora!
Judith Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin
Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Set in Truesdell and Mighty Tuxedo.
Zora Neale Hurston was a dynamic character. The design needed to reflect her high energy as well as the period in which she lived. Art deco borders were adapted to fit featured art, and a simpler treatment created to decorate smaller images.