Steve LaFrance's Portfolio

The Barbara Bush Foundation, whose focus is literacy improvement, was in search of new content for their 1st through 3rd grade reader program that spanned 50+ titles. These programs, aimed at struggling students, were provided in digital only format to increase their accessibility to families in all circumstances.

Three tiers of new content were created: student story books, parent guides, and mentor guides (for older reading coach students). The entire set of books were color coded by grade level and type, all of the content was built with tablet or phone use in mind.

Story Book Cover

Story Book Page

Parent Guide Cover

Parent Guide Page

Mentor Guide Cover

Mentor Guide Page

Written by the son of theologian RC Sproul, this book describes memories and lessons taught to Jr by his father. Knowing the book needed to reflect both men a silhouette of both father and son was created to illustrate their connection.

Blue Plastic Stool is a collection of Flash Fiction, Poetry, and Creative Non-fiction by foreign and local writers living in Vietnam. A cover that reflected the culture of Vietnam was developed along with a Static page layout to maintain the writing style of each author.

Blue Plastic Stool is available for free on both the iBook and Kindle stores.

Steven Deaton, who operates Bibleinfo.co, developed a daily prayer journal for women and wanted a series of unique covers created for them. The covers had to somewhat abstract, graphical, and appeal to a female audience. A total of 10 covers were made with some designs repeated in alternate color schemes.

Feliks, the creator of ColorByFeliks, wanted to produce a book for his fans to help them understand how to mix acrylic paints to achieve different color shades and tones. I created a clean layout style using “paint styled” headers and pull quotes that was easy to read and not distracting from the content. Working together we developed a set of illustrations to help readers understand how blending a few primary colors creates all of the colors on the color wheel.

The Violet Weaver, book one in the Awestruck Trilogy, is a fantasy novel spanning three different island nations. That basis, along with the provided illustrations, helped drive the design of the book cover. Featured on the front is a large framed illustration of the main characters, on the back cover the same frame element along with illustrations of the islands were used to draw interest. A light texture was applied to the background of the cover to help add a little color and texture to the entire piece.

A personal photographic documentary, this project seeks to depict life in a mobile home and how the collection of random and unrelated things could be condensed into such a small space. The layout brings the disorganized subject matter into balance. A navigation system is provided to orient readers in an environment that would otherwise be confusing and disorienting.

Created for a contest, the book cover of Into the Haze was a lot of fun to compose. Sadly the client never got the chance to see it, an unreliable internet connection while abroad prevented the design from being submitted.

Carnival at the Crossroads tells the story of a young girl who chases down a carnival run by Baron Samedi in an effort to rescue her friend. This title, intended for younger readers, needed a whimsical and dark (but not scary) design. Taking direction from the content that the author shared a layered illustration was created to help encapsulate the story.

A book set in the late 1800’s, Bull features a host of off-beat characters in a traditional western hero chase setting. While the western theme needed to be visually present this concept veered away from the typical “horse an cowboy” motif, instead using the recognizable western six-shooter and a creature featured in the story.

This book cover concept was created for a book based in Victorian London, the story centered around the head of a woman found in the frozen Thames. Two different approaches were used, the first focused on the graphical traditional thriller motif intended to catch the viewers attention with an image that hinted at the grisly. The second approach used an illustration reminiscent of the era the book was based in with hints of the story presented in the decorative elements.

The protagonist of this book predominantly stayed in her home watching her neighbors on her home security system. After witnessing a crime she is faced with the decision of how to deal with it and her own limitations. The cover concept featured a woman using the lead characters method of observing the world, that was then blended in with the look and feel of a thriller/suspense novel.

Lost and Hollow is a prequel in the Edgar Vincent thriller series. This book cover needed to focus on the protagonist in an urban environment as opposed to the rural environments of the past books.

Double Down is an action/mystery novel set in Miami, Florida during the early 1970’s. Based on the time and place one cover was created using iconic Florida imagery, a second was created based on the jumping off point of the story (no pun intended).

Hauling Checks is a satirical novel based on pilots who fly cashed checks from one end of the country in the worst sort of weather in aircraft that are not always in the best state of repair. A set of book covers using ironic illustrations of the working environment were developed.