When I was close to finalizing the manuscript for Startling Figures, I used my daughter’s iPad and a drawing app to finger paint a few (bad) sketches. I emailed them to Tom, the cover designer, to give him an idea of what I was looking for in the cover:
image A
image B
image C
image D
I also put together a mock-up cover:
Awful, right?
Tom has not read any of the stories in the book. All he’s read is the back cover copy and this quote from Flannery O’Connor, which I use for the epigraph:
to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind
you draw large and startling figures
Tom is a creative director at an ad agency, and a talented graphic designer and artist. Here’s what he came up with:
Need I say more?
Unless you have actual design, photography, and / or artistic skill, access to professional graphic design and image creation tools, and so on, don’t design your own book cover. Leave that to the professionals.
Thanks, Tom!
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