Three new cover designs of mine for Angry Robot which were made public a few hours ago. The Courts of the Feyre is a fantasy series by British author Mike Shevdon set in present-day Britain and involving “a world of dark magic and strange creatures hidden in plain sight.” Two of these titles are reprints, Strangeness and Charm is a new addition to the series, and there are plans for a fourth title later on.
Marc at Angry Robot wanted a distinctive, uniform look for the series, and I’m very pleased with the way the designs turned out. Since the plan was to use a decorative frame printed on black I decided to have a tilted square in the centre of each cover to make a shape that would catch the eye on a shelf or when seen as a thumbnail image. It’s also possible to interpret the squares as a kind of “court” within each design, with each court containing articles relevant to that story.
All three books are due to be published in June 2012.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The book covers archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Steampunk overloaded!
I like the Strangeness and Charm one the best mainly because of the face and the Celtic Cross. As someone commented on the Angry Robots website they’d look good haning on the wall. Maybe you should sell them as posters too.
For some strange reason I feel like there should be four instead of just 3.
I prefer the first one since I liked the way the nails worked out. I was a little unsure about the cobwebs on book three but author and editor were happy with those. The presence of the square possibly implies a fourth book.
This kind of design would work well as a letterpress print although I don’t know anyone who does those. I’d be happy to see Angry Robot do some posters although you have to guard against being too optimistic with such things; people sometimes say they want a print or poster then won’t buy anything when you get them made!
These are wonderful, John!
Oh wow. They look great! I already have voumes 1 and 2 unfortunately but I definitely want that third volume.
NIce! I particularly like the fact that there are indeed sixty one nails on the first cover.
Thanks, everyone.
Dave C: I made a particular effort to get the correct number of nails but I suspect the author would have insisted if there’d been too few or too many.
Can you at least have a break over christmas from shaming the rest of us with your high-caliber productivity?
Heh, thanks, Alfie.
Beautiful covers John. They do the trick of making a would-be-purchaser covet and acquire all of them! (-;
Thanks, Clive. Response on the Angry Robot site and elsewhere seems to imply they were having that effect.
Beautiful covers !!