Identity/Difference Politics

Rita Dhamoon

Another 2 colour cover. Just got approved. This is from the brief: "The three main ideas are the production of differences which don't take full form, interactions between identities, and disruption." The author wanted me to try the idea of movement caught on slow camera which would be one way of expressing her central arguments.

The Art and Science of Stanislaw Lem

Peter Swirski

From the back cover: "In The Art and Science of Stanislaw Lem, American and European scholars offer an inter-disciplinary analysis of his influence on Western culture and of the creative partnering of art and science in his fiction and futorology". For this type only cover I wanted to add the notion of discovery and examination.

Pragmatism and Social Hope

Judith Green

Green maps a contemporary form of citizenship that emphasizes participation and cooperation and reclaims the critical role of social movements and nongovernmental organizations. The challenge for this cover was to find a new way of expressing the notion of different entities coming together to form a group without resorting to the usual visual clichés.

A Long Eclipse

Catherine Gidney

From the back cover copy: "Gidney shows that the decline of the Protestant presence on University campuses started with the swirling moral kaleidoscope of the 1960s." I decided to do a type-only cover with a twist. The "U" is emerging from an eclipse.

Nunavut

Rethinking Political Culture
Ailsa Henderson

Nunavut is the new Canadian territory that was established in April 1999. That date appears on the bottom of the license plate.

Chef

Jaspreet Singh





This is the second cover I have done for this writer. 17 Tomatoes was the first one. Jaspreet was involved in the creative process for both covers in ways that really added a lot to the final result. After I came up with concept of using a red cricket ball to tie into the "red tomatoes" from the title of 17 Tomatoes, Jaspreet tracked down an actual cricket ball and suggested using the tiger as an appropriate image.

Chef takes places on the Siachen Glacier on the border between India and Pakistan. This disputed territory is a war zone on the top of the world. From the cover copy: "Chef Kirpal, seriously ill, returns to Kashmir after a gap of fourteen years to cook a wedding meal for a General's daughter." His father is buried in a cravace inside the glacier and he is also on a journey to excavate the body. The first sketch I did using spices and a piece of ice was not representative of the novel. In my discussion with Jaspreet he explained that Chef had another important meaning that I was missing - a military commander. The second option I presented showed the actual glacier and had a feeling of drama that I really liked. I was getting close but it was still laking another dimension. I found the image of a cravace on the Siachen Glacier on the website of an Indian photographer. He gave us permission to use it after 2 or 3 attempts at navigating the language barrier. For once the use of "a novel" is not a gratuitous design element. It indicates the point that is the focus of his journey. He would like to excavate a part of his past that has kept him moving forward.

option 1

option2

Clowns and Rats Scare Me

Cary Clack

This is a collections of Columns by Cary Clack. Every once in a while you are given a title for a book that is so strong that it practically drives the design process. I wanted to find the simplest way of combining clowns and rats in a single concept. I only presented this one cover concept. Just got the word that cover is approved.

Ellington Uptown

John Howland

Originally I intended to make the cover look like a vintage NY subway car with all the type worked into the signage. It seemed a little predictable so I went with his famous orchestra in the shape of an arrow pointing up. I wanted it to emulate a jazz poster from the era.

Circling Home

John Lane

From the cover copy: "Centering an old, chipped saucer over his home, he traced a circle one mile in radius and set out to explore the area. Circling Home recounts the ‘adventure travel’ he does within that circle." Some covers do themselves. I found a chipped saucer in my kitchen cupboard and traced out a one mile radius circle on a satellite image of the author's home.

This is book about wealth and privilege in New York city at the turn of the last century. I must have spent an entire afternoon trying to get the concept with the white glove laid over a period map of the Bronx to work but gave up in the end. Maps have been used so much on cover designs that it is very hard to use them in an original way. I ended up using the type "The Bronx" from the legend of the map so all was not lost. It still needs some refinement but the general concept is there.

The Ascent of Money

Niall Ferguson

Another one that got away.

Living Waters

Margaret Wooster

When you are doing covers for University Presses you rarely have the budget for stock photography. I created this cover out of four Shutterstock images (below). Shutterstock, for those who don't know, is a royalty free subscription image service.

The Absolute Violation

Richard Matthews

The Collectors of Lost Souls

Warwick Anderson

Sometimes you get such a great image to work with that your only job as a cover designer is to get out of the way.

The Last Well Person

Norton M. Hadler M.D.

I found this Dr. Suess-like image and thought it could work really well for this cover. The only thing I added was the hospital signage above. This cover was a tough one to strike just the right chord.

The Indian Who Bombed Berlin

Ralph Salisbury

This book of stories deals with the horrors of war. These covers represent two executions of the same idea. I only presented the one with the illustrated clouds and blue sky because I wasn't happy with the monochromatic feel the other one. I also like the contrast with the beautiful blue sky and the impending devastation. I found the painting of sky with clouds and added the bombs.

The Art of Living Series

I just finished number nine in this series of philosophy books published in the UK.



These are some of the ones that got away

After the Cure

The Untold Stories of Breast Cancer Survivors

Fatigue. Chronic pain. Insomnia. Depression. These are just a few of the ongoing, debilitating symptoms that plague some breast-cancer survivors long after their treatments have officially ended. This is a very simple, direct solution - frayed survivor ribbon. For some covers an idea comes to you and you think, "Is this too obvious a solution?" Once I came up with it though I couldn't think of a better solution.

Imprint logos

I started my career by being immersed in corporate identity work (Domtar logo c.1999). I still love doing logo designs and all the more when they overlap with my second love - book cover design.


These are imprint logos I designed for two small independent Canadian publishers.

The Steppes are the Colour of Sepia

Connie Braun

From the back cover copy: "... invites the reader to embark on a journey that traces the paths of ancestral memory over the steppes of the Russian empire to the valleys of Canada’s Fraser River." The smaller images below show the order of presented sketches. I really liked the idea of a mennonite carriage being left behind with the horse running away. The problem with this one and the other ones that followed was that I was using imagery that most Canadians associate with mennonites but they were fundamentally inaccurate. Here is comment from author : "Such imagery belongs to the Amish strain that immigrated from the Netherlands to North America in the 1700's (prior to the beginning of my story) and have nothing at all to do with my heritage ... the Russian/Soviet Mennontites of this story did not wear costumes, they assimilated - they had to, under communism."

The final accepted cover shows a red scarf blowing over the Russian Steppe.

Crisis of Conscience

Amy Shaw

This cover is just going through as I write this. The first sketch is below. Usually when you get an e-mail from a publisher stating that the author showed the sketch to some designer friends, you know your cover is in for a rough ride. In this case the suggestions really helped and made for a better cover. I had intended the cover to look like a typical recruiting poster from the period but that wasn't coming through enough in the first sketch. The choice between whether to fight or resist was also not being conveyed strongly enough.

Mapping Marriage Law In Spanish Gitano Communities

Susan Drummond

From the back cover copy: "... through small- and large-scale studies of Gitano marriage law in a modern urban centre, and in particular communities and families." This is a map of Jerez, Spain with two wedding bands integrated into it. The author in this case is my sister and this is her second book. I owe her a debt of gratitude because she recommended me for my first cover design job - her first book.

Animal's People

Indra Sinha

Animal is the main character in this novel. As a child he was horribly disfigured by the explosion of a pesticide chemical facility, not unlike the incident in Bhopal. As a result he can only walk on all fours.

This was another one that got away. It was for a book about how the USA is over medicating itself.

Writing in the Cegeps

Zsolt Alapi

Just sending this one off to the printers. Cegeps are post secondary colleges in Quebec. It is a collection of student writing.


This is the original photo. St. Catherine Street Montreal. Editor found it a bit drab and had an aversion to the pigeons so I added different facade and threw in a fire hydrant.

The Torontonians

Phyllis Brett Young

The book was brought back into print and they wanted a new cover. For a while I considered using most of the original cover with slight alterations but decided against it in the end. I kept the illustration of the woman whose martini glass morphs into the Toronto City Hall building in Nathan Phillips Squrare.

Distributive Principles of Criminal Law

Who Should be Punished How Much?
Paul H. Robinson

House of Houses

Pat Mora

This is a memoir of a Mexican-American family. From the back cover: “Mora uses the image of a house—the house of houses—during a single year, a fruitful metaphor that allows her to dwell on the bright beauty of flowers, birds, and trees, emblems of the loving legacy of her nurturing family.” The house is imagined floating in the sky. I liked the idea of using a collage of family photographs arranged in the shape of a house.



This was the other option presented.