A few weeks ago I was asked to come up with a cover concept for Victoria Holt's 'On the Night of the Seventh Moon' for St Martin's Press over in NYC. My agent informed me they liked the cover I did for 'Half Broken Things', but would like something slightly simpler, with less panels etc........so, instead of repeating myself (which is actually sometimes what clients of course want you to do) I came up with the rough below, which I sent off.
While this was a detailed rough, it wasn't the finished article by any means (the castle turrets would need more work, the face a bit more manipulation/painting etc).......but I liked the way it was heading, with the strong diagonal which I was hoping would allow some exciting ideas for the type placement.
The art director decided they wanted to go with something a little more straight forward. I guess, obviously they are looking for the cover to appeal mass market, the whole idea is of course to sell books! So they wanted a straight panel........ they had a stock shot of a woman they would like to use on the cover, so I integrated that within the image and, basically the cover was 'art directed'.
Below you can see the finished layered image I sent off on the left, and after some slight tweaking by the art director, the final cover on the right.
On a side note - some 'people' have a real problem with this, it's very easy to get precious about the image making process and of course, in and ideal world, we would all love our illustrations to be our 'baby's'. For me though, the reality is that I want to make my clients as happy as they can be first and foremost - we are trying to solve a problem - TOGETHER. An art directors job is to 'direct' the artist, sometimes a vision wont get through due to marketing decisions, editors opinions, authors thoughts etc etc - it can be a minefield - but if the art director and illustrator communicate well together, all problems can be solved in my opinion.
This is my living - illustration/image making is what I have always wanted to do, and ultimately I am very grateful people come to me for my help and expertise - I am lucky enough to make a living from this and never, ever take this for granted. I know too many talented people that unfortunately have not been as lucky as myself.
Below you can see the other Victoria Holt title I have just finished, completed with the same process.
Huge thanks to Jeanette for allowing me to post about this process.
4 comments:
I found this blog really interesting. I can see why the other route was taken in the end as the final cover looks more commercial, but I love the first composition - it's got a real fairytale quality to it.
The first one is my favourite. Very whimsical and romantic.
Very interesting blog post - I love the way you talk it through. The first picture is just gorgeous - tremendous use of colour and like Michelle said, it has a definite fairytale feel to it.
But then I also like the other covers that came from that and can see how they would appeal commercially.
Thanks so much for sharing this with us!
Liz, a pleasure sharing, and thank you for your thoughts and comments.....Michelle, thanks for your thoughts, lovely meeting you yesterday and thanks for the coffee - very interesting speaking with you so hopefully we can meet up again sometime soon and I can buy you a coffee!
Best,
chris
Post a Comment