I was approached to redesign the cover for the first book in an author’s book series — a project which evolved into redesigning the cover for the second, as well as creating a cover for a book that was to be a ‘set’ of the first two books. The books were treated as middle-grade fantasy, mostly for boys.
Initially, for the first design, I found myself drawn to dramatic shadowing and slightly cartoonized portraiture to appeal to the darker side of the fantasy and to appeal to the target audience while still being
age appropriate.
Knowing that the covers would be a set, I worked with the author to find thematic elements that could be carried over from book to book — a character and an object from each book were decided on, to be placed at the same angle and in the same space on the covers. Each cover also has it’s own colour, which are ‘melted’ together for the ‘box set’ book, to easily visually identify that it contains both books.
