Developing the Cover

Sep - 10 - 2009Filed in: Artwork | Design
cover sketch
Yesterday I sat down in Hillsboro Village with a couple of Fat Tires and the highly sought-after visual artist Evie Coates to discuss cover design. I commissioned the art from Evie a few months ago but since then both she and I have been so busy with other things that we’ve scarcely been able to talk, much less sit down and hash out the design in proper fashion. So one of the first things on my to-do list once I got home to Nashville was to find time to get together with her and to make sure we were on the same page artistically.

Our meeting went swimmingly (no, I’d never use that word in conversation but it’s too much fun to say no to right now). We discussed colors and composition and the various motifs and symbology we wanted to see. One of the things Evie excels at is making every component of her work convey a part of the story she’s telling. To enable her to design the best possible cover, it’s essential that I communicate clearly what story it is that I want told in the artwork. I want to put as many tools as I can into her toolbox so that when she sits down to begin her creation, she has what she needs--motifs like ropes, waves, southern architecture, ships, forests, spanish moss, blood, anchors, chains, fiddles, and of course guns. Add to that themes from the book like independence, freewill, consequence, coming of age, war, and love and you begin to see the palette from which a work of visual art might be drawn.

When it comes down to it, though, all I can give her are ideas and vague directions. Evie is the one with the visual gift and I have faith that she’ll emerge from The Hatch having created something meaningful, something beautiful, something that will draw readers into Fin’s world and her story before they’ve ever read a word of it.

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