MAKER SPACE cover preview

Posted byKBSpanglerPosted inMaker SpaceTags:,

November has been a fast-moving month. MAKER SPACE is nearly finished, and is entering the edit/proof phases. In the meantime, I’ve been working with Rose Loughran, the cover artist for the Rachel Peng books. Rose and I have been kicking designs around since July. I knew the feature image for this cover would be the Jefferson Memorial at night: the design and the colors of that building are gorgeous, plus Jefferson can be considered a maker himself.

Jefferson Memorial, twilight. Tell me you don't want to pour those colors into a tub and soak in them.
Jefferson Memorial, twilight. Tell me you don’t want to pour those colors into a tub and soak in them.

So that was the starting point, and then came the months of tweaking.

First roughs of memorial.
First roughs of memorial.
We decided the piece needed an anchor for visual weight, so I found an old wrought-iron lamp post and Rose penciled it in.
We decided the piece needed an anchor for visual weight, so I found an old wrought-iron lamp post and Rose penciled it in.
Lamp repositioned to spread out the composition.
Lamp repositioned to spread out the composition.
One of the nicest features of the DIGITAL DIVIDE cover art was the light blending through the main text, so Rose added a wall for another peekaboo lighting option.
One of the nicest features of the DIGITAL DIVIDE cover art was the light blending through the main text, so Rose added a wall for another peekaboo lighting option.
Final object placement, final color scheme. Room for text at top and bottom. Looks great, right?
Final object placement, final color scheme. Room for text at top and bottom. Looks great, right?

And the final art came in today. Don’t get fluffy about the quality of the text! It’s pre-tweaking and is there for placement purposes only.

More tweaks are needed to the text (kerning, effects, and I despise that letter K), but the art is amazing.
More tweaks are needed to the text (kerning, effects, and I despise that letter K), but the art is amazing. There’s even room for a publicity pull quote in the open space above the memorial!

I couldn’t be more pleased with Rose’s work. This cover is going to look fantastic in print. The best part of these novels is this end phase where the pieces make a whole.

 

 

 

Published by KBSpangler

A freelance editor who writes novels, comics, and repairs a disaster of a house in her spare time: www.kbspangler.com

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s