Brittany’s Golden Globes of 2024

With 2024 over and 2025 just beginning, I've been thinking about what I could do in my blog series to highlight the previous year and move forward into the new. I haven’t posted in nearly two months (shame of me), so the pressure was on to start 2025 with some sort of BANG! Or at least a pop.

After some thought, I've decided the best way to show a review of my 2024 year is not in writing, but in images: specifically, images of some of my best or most challenging graphics from this last year. I was inspired by the recent Golden Globes, so I split the designs into categories. Just imagine my best announcer voice as you read the winner of each category.

Without further ado, here are the “Golden Globes” of my 2024 designs. Enjoy!

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First Book Cover: Heather Sykes, “The Life and Influence of Abraham”

Not only my very first book cover, but also my first Upwork job! Heather also left my first Upwork review, a glowing one that still makes me smile when I read it.

First Publishing House Book Cover: Fortress Press, an Imprint of Augsburg Fortress Publishers, “Christianity and Transforming States” Edited by David Emmanuel Singh

A huge thanks to Kris Miller for offering me this book-cover contract position with Fortress Press! I have done two books covers for them so far, and I hope I will continue working with Fortress for a long time.

Biggest Book Cover Transformation: Eddie Freeman, “How to Trade Like Hedge Fund Managers”

Eddie needed a book cover to catch the eye of financial traders and investors, particularly for retirees, but his previous cover did not match the vibe of his book. After a fair bit of communication and test designs, we came up with this updated cover artwork. I think it is a BIG improvement, and will hopefully help guide more customers to purchase his book.

First Full Book: Kristine Rapohina, “Watercolor Wisdom”

This is my first cover-to-cover design; not only the front cover, back cover, and spine, but also all the interior pages, a slip cover, and an envelope for the painting paper. This was a wonderful challenge and a joy to design!

Biggest Project: Carolyn Sweet, 7 Instructional Documents for Montessori Teachers

These documents took nearly four whole months to design. Each booklet, which was made to instruct Montessori teachers on certain lessons to teach kids, was over 100 pages, some of which were over 200. Each one was image-heavy and needed careful attention to layout design. 

Longest-Running Client: Church of the Resurrection, Leawood, KS

I have been a contract designer for Resurrection for almost exactly 2 years! I have created a BIG variety of projects, ranging from outdoor signage and sandwich boards, to social media and event graphics, to t-shirts and stickers.

Best Non-Editorial Design: Resurrection, IYKYK, youth group series

A simple but striking design. I’m still in awe of how beautiful it turned out, especially since it looks more complex than it actually was.

Best Design: SHINE Book Cover, Personal Project

This was is a personal design project for myself to practice some Photoshop skills and book design ideas. It turned into my favorite design of the whole year. I love the colors, the silhouette, and the glow, and I consider this my best design of 2024.

All the best!

Brittany Becker