As a designer, one of my favorite things to read on design sites are pieces describing the process of designing book cover or poster. But I keep forgetting to put together blog posts showing my own.
Right now I’m in the middle of designing a series of books by Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J., on the topic of happiness. I was told to make the books look a little similar, but not too similar. The first one was Finding True Happiness, which came out this spring.
I don’t seem to have my prep sketches for this one. My initial idea was the bluebird of happiness, but after an initial start in Photoshop I realized it looked like I was designing a book about twitter. I went back to the drawing board and then came across this image of the Madonna and Child by Marianne Stokes:
The way the thorns curved around is a very strong graphical element. Searching for other images of thorns, I found some of Arthur Rackham’s silhouette illustrations for Sleeping Beauty:
Now I was getting somewhere. I decided to make the bird yellow. It would now be a variation on the goldfinch, a symbol of Christ and his Passion common in medieval art. Since the goldfinch lives upon the seeds of thorny plants, it provides a foreshadowing of the crowning with thorns.
I drew the image in Illustrator and brought each layer into Photoshop to add color and texture. I added in the rays of light shining downwards and used a limited color palette to echo early 20th century design.
For the second book in the series, The Soul’s Upward Yearning, I sketched out a few ideas depicting the bird flying upward out of the thorns. But it was too similar to the first one. Then I remembered a photo I had taken a few weeks back. I occasionally walk over to the local used book store, where I will pick up some books for reading on the train to work. This time I had come across a visually arresting first edition of the Jungle Book and had snapped a picture in case the design might inspire something. It was just what was needed:
I still needed some element to replace the bird. I settled on a flower, since plants are drawn upwards toward light. Using the Jungle Book as visual reference, I sketched out a ballpoint rough and showed it to the art director. It was given a thumbs-up, and I started drawing the layers in Illustrator, then used the same process I had done with the previous cover to add color.
Here’s the finished illustration:
And the finished cover:
I still have two more books to go in the series. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for more inspiration.
Hi John,
Just finally exploring your website. Lovely thinking to see here! I especially have enjoyed reading about the process of how these book covers are evolving. So nice to see creativity at work…on the train and elsewhere!
Kate AKA Bess Cellars