Designing the cover was actually pretty fun. I had an original concept in my mind to have a sword, once you’ve read it you’ll know why, resting on the ground, with the camera looking along it’s length, at a slight angle. I looked for a few photos, but none of them really conveyed the sword accurately. I also had this vision of it being drawn and looking like it was coloured with water colours, almost in a wishy washy fashion, maybe dreamlike.
I approached my sister, an awesome fine artist and asked her if she would be able to draw this sword for me. I tried to give as much detail as I could, but my explanations were really vague. Though I had managed to describe the weapon in detail in the book, I left much to the readers imagination. Eventually I managed to find a few photos and images on the net which represented the kind of image I was looking for. I point of fact, we actually changes from the “looking along it’s length” view to a straight top down view as we realised that some of the features were intrinsically hidden by using the former perspective.
I still love the final image which Jane drew for me. It conveys everything that I wanted to express. It’s soft enough to be a figment of an imagination, yet powerful enough in it’s entirety that it portrays the nature of the book right there on the front cover. I complemented the sword with a deep colouring which seemed to me to look rather royal, or regal, giving some weight to the word Emblem. An emblem is a symbol, a sign, an insignia and as such the colour I chose is intended to conjure up those kind of feelings.
The specific placement of the sword and it’s presence offer an explanation of the word divide. A sword is usually used to cut things or two divide them into several pieces. I briefly toyed with the idea of slicing a part of the red banner, but decided this to be invasive and actually much more harming of the original message I was attempting to convey.
Part 2 – The lettering and blurb
