I was approached recently by a Mrs Laura Barnard, who had recently written a “chick-lit” novel which she planned to imminently release on Kindle through Amazon. Now, the concept of “chick-lit” was an alien one to me but the overall idea seemed evident from the name. It is literature for “chicks”, or women, as I would prefer us vagina bearing types to be referred to. But my views on the naming of this kind of literature are irrelevant here. These are a certain kind of novel; not necessarily my first instinctual choice of literary style, but that is also irrelevant. They are aimed at a certain audience, with a certain writing style, and usually with a certain kind of cover design. I return to the point at hand: I was approached by the author of one such novel in order to design it’s cover image. My first thoughts were those of admiration for Mrs Barnard simply for having the gumption to actualise that dream I believe most people aspire to; writing a book. I’ve always wanted to write, and I tell myself I haven’t done so because I don’t have the time or some other excuse, when in reality it’s because I don’t have enough belief in my own creative skills and ability to carry such a thing through to a successful end. Also, alas I fear I am so much of a perfectionist; I don’t think I could ever actually finish such an extended piece of prose without finding “just one more thing” to change. I mean, writing articles such as this are difficult enough not to spend an eternity editing and perfecting… I even have trouble composing tweets that fulfil my perfectionist’s aspirations.
Again, I have veered rather away from the plot line. Another problem I would certainly confront if I ever tackled novel writing…
So, Mrs Barnard explained her project to me; a chick-lit novel based around a pair of best friends in their twenties. One of whom (named Jazz) is a bit of a party animal too used to parental financial support, who has managed to find herself rather in the red: “The Debt”. And the other(named Poppy); a self-conscious and accident prone young lady who finds herself rather too fond of her tracksuit bottoms, television shows and lack of social interaction following a difficult end to a relationship: “The Doormat”. So, these two women decide to swap lives, as though that’s a wonderful idea that will fix all their problems. But of course, life isn’t as simple as swapping with your best friend, so evidently, folly and drama ensue. I was sent across the first few chapters of the book to read, in order that I get a good feel for the characters and flow of the story so I could feel more comfortable creating a fitting design.
Despite discovering a few grammatical errors (I’m a stickler for good English- It’s why Binarycore have unofficially employed me as volunteer proof-reader and editor for their articles recently. Though I feel I perhaps wouldn’t be so glad to do so had I not managed to get myself (happily) married to the bugger who runs this thing.), I enjoyed what I read, and started to get a good idea of what kind of cover I could picture the novel having. Mrs Barnard herself of course had some conceptual ideas of her own, which were good, but it was my job to take those and re-jig them in a way that works aesthetically.
Some of the first ideas thrown back and forth were images of Poppy cutting Jazz’s credit card while Jazz pours wine into Poppy’s tea cup. Or Poppy sitting on a sofa, unaware of Jazz coming up behind her to put wine in her cup, or Jazz chugging a bottle of wine while Poppy cuts her credit card. As concepts, these were a good starting point, but my thought was that they were too literal; images of actual situations occurring, rather than a more figurative representation of the overall idea and themes, which I felt would work better. Also, when you get down to having the characters represented actually doing things with objects in their hands, I felt the image was too much about small detail and the image composition isn’t as aesthetically pleasing that way. Upon trying to sketch these, I realised I was right, and I should continue with larger, more emblematic work rather than tight little situational pictures.
I found that this project, more so than any of my artistic endeavours before it, was very much a collaborative piece, in that the author rightly had a lot of input throughout the design process. I’m not used to this, as usually people tell me what they want drawn, and I draw it. More often than not, they trust me as the artist to know what I’m doing and get on with it. But this was different because this project is quite clearly Mrs Barnard’s baby, and as such, she wanted it done perfectly how she wanted it. I think working this way worked out very well in the end, as she pushed me to better myself at each turn. Even though I had my own opinions with regard to what worked, in the end I had to follow the author’s wishes- which is exactly how it should be in this kind of project. Even though to a certain degree the artist has to be trusted by the client to know what works aesthetically, the artist still has to include everything the client wants, and make certain changes they ask for. At the end of the day the client has to be happy with the result, as well as the artist. I had to be happy with the composition, layout and design quality, but ultimately decisions about minor details and colour schemes have to be the client’s choice. Me personally preferring blue/green? Doesn’t matter. She prefers the pink, I make it pink. It’s her book. It was a good balancing act for me, and definitely a good learning curve.
I liked the idea of the wine in the tea cup, so took that and injected the idea of tea in a wine glass. It had symmetry to it which I was drawn to, and thought it was nicely symbolic of the theme of the book, without being overly literal. However, Mrs Barnard wanted a better representation of “the debt”; something factually related to money, so the idea of the credit card made a return. And although I liked the big symbolic style of just the objects, she still wanted the characters themselves to be featured, so they also made a return. But to satisfy my need for a less exact photo-like image, but more illustrative and expressive design, I kept the characters back to back and the objects symbolising their life swap, as oversized background images. I couldn’t have them in their hands, it just didn’t feel right, and Mrs Barnard approved so I moved forward with this design.
Due to my diligence with the grammar errors in the first few chapters, it was requested of me to proof-read the whole book. Very nice, as it meant I got a free copy of the book. But a hundred and forty thousand-ish words later, numerous hours of my time had been taken up, which meant less speedy progress with my original job, the cover. Mrs Barnard was most definitely in a hurry to get everything ready to release, so I was working as fast as I could, without letting the standards I expect from myself to slip. And although having to edit the book was more work, it did mean that my designing process worked much better. I knew everything I could know about the characters and the story, so I could accurately inject the real feeling of the book into my work. I always like to have as much depth behind a design as possible, even if it isn’t apparent to anyone but myself.
It had been made clear to me from the start that the author wanted the cover not only to characterise the story itself, but also to embody her own personality. She expressed her desires for it to be girly, with vintage style themes, and pastel colours. Hence my choices to include filigree framework, to make the tea cup a proper vintage looking china cup and saucer, to make the scissors more ornate.
I had drawn the characters how I saw them, as described, and in each other’s clothes (they do this in the book). I had them back to back, looking suspiciously over their shoulders at the other; Jazz looking a bit cheeky, Poppy looking more serious. I had Jazz slouching, hip out, hand in pocket, to show her attitude, while poppy stood straight, trying to be taller, arms crossed, all in attempt to render their personalities. I had come to what I believed to be a good end point, having drawn, scanned and re-worked the images in Photoshop. I had added the text, a colour backdrop, it was composed perfectly (above). But upon sending this final design to the author, I was given several more points for change, to make it perfect in her eyes. As frustrating as it was for me to redo a lot of work, she was right! Their clothes needed to be different; to really show their personalities. The background needed to extend to the edge of the page. The text had to be coloured. The people had to be coloured. Poppy needed to be shorter. She needed to be less attractive… I really do struggle to draw people that aren’t dramatically striking in appearance; it’s a terrible fault of mine… and then it even came down to tiny details like “make her nose narrower” and it worked. It really did. Because the end result was even better than I thought it would be, and that’s all thanks to our combined attention to detail and perfectionism.
All it came down to then was the colours. I originally created the whole thing in a duck-egg blue scheme; my personal favourite. But I had to give Mrs Barnard more colourways to choose from. So, sticking with the pastels she liked, I sat and fiddled with the hue/lightness/saturation of the various layers in Photoshop for a good long while. The results were pleasing, and in the end Mrs Barnard chose the blue with pink text.
I was then told she also needed a spine image and back cover image. Luckily these didn’t take anywhere near as long, and this is the final product:
I’m incredibly pleased with the result, as is she. I’m also heavily glad never to have to work on this thing again (I say that in the nicest way possible) It was a long, difficult slog. But I relished the challenge, and nothing is more pleasing than finishing a challenge with such a great result.
So go out and get her book, The Debt and The Doormat by Laura Barnard, now available on Amazon for Kindle. Also, like her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/laurabarnardbooks?fref=ts . But most of all, go check out my page too!! https://www.facebook.com/crossthethreshold (I need the likes more than she does :P)
And of course, don’t hesitate to contact me, you’re friendly neighbourhood artist, for any of your artistic needs.
Bambi
@deerbeth
http://hailandwellmet.tumblr.com/
https://www.facebook.com/crossthethreshold
