book cover design for "The Burned-Out Blogger's Guide to P.R."

Quite appropriate considering how neglectful a blogger I've been of late but I can finally show one of the several projects which I have bubbling away under the surface till their respective release dates arrive. I'm pleased to say the estimable writer and tech pundit Jason Kincaid was good enough to entrust me with the cover design for his first book, "The Burned-Out Blogger's Guide to P.R." Even if you don't see yourself as a tech entrepreneur, should you rub shoulders with the press or P.R types in your daily existence then Jason's book has a wealth of do's and don'ts narrated in a witty and very readable way. The ebook launched a couple of days ago and the paperback is due in the next couple of weeks. For now dear blog here are my rough alternative concepts and the final ebook cover.

Napoleon is proving complex...

Well my head and desk have been full of all things Napoleon over the last few days. I cannot talk about specifics at this stage, safe to say there's hopefully going to be a book cover and a few other things in the offing. Although the brief calls for a little restraint in how I depict the little big guy I couldn't resist having a play with a more caricature approach and get it out of my system early on. So here's some Napoleon sketches. No doubt more will follow...

Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis book cover design...

Well here is why I needed to sketch upside down Volkswagen Beetle cars in my last but one post. The notion for this cover is a little bit tongue in cheek (for those who haven't read the short story it's about a chap who wakes up transformed into a giant beetle) but something about the idea appealed to me. Perhaps it's the mix of the iconic story and the iconic car... maybe the surreal nature of the plot is amped up that little bit more by seeing a car in bed...? Whatever it is there was also the challenge to show the cover without resorting to the usual  design treatment showing images of an actual insect. All the cover and spine text is hand cut from card or paper for that more disjointed, slightly insectish feel. I hadn't planned on the 'headlamp' O's for the title or the tyre tread pattern for the book's spine but they were spur of the moment choices that just seemed like the right thing to do to help with legibility of the title, tie the front and back covers together and also lay on the VW beetle theme a little bit thicker.

Book cover project...

I was lucky enough for a project to come my way recently to design a book cover (along with a poster and promo bookmark to boot). I really enjoy the challenge of doing a book cover design, translating the content of what's inside into something appropriate to both selling the book and enticing the potential reader. I won't go into specifics until it's printed but I'll admit that at first glance the brief had me really stumped.

The author summed up one aspect of the book as being able to take risks, not be anxious, playfulness... so I jumped on that lifeline and along came a daredevil high diver. As is often the case, don't you find, when you just doodle (and, for me, when I should really be doing something else instead of doodling...) you get little quirky gems which you want to keep right through to the end artwork. Well the little thumbnail sketch of the hunched diver with the stringy arms had something I couldn't put my finger on but just liked so he stayed as a layer in my photoshop document right till the very end. At first the diver was in swim shorts but it just didn't have that jokey something to bring the character to life. Then, when all else failed along came speedos and a daredevil was born!

So why the two covers...? I submitted both to the client with the suggestion that the poster and bookmark could have the tentative 'pre dive' chap... a teaser for the main event of the book cover where the bold fellow shakes off the shackles of gravity and takes to the air. Luckily the client agreed, woohoo!