Carolyn Tate came to me in August last year, she was looking for a beautiful cover that would express themes of hope following grief, personal healing and a connection with nature. She had a couple of ideas in mind, involving natural imagery with a woman’s fierce face coming through.
The Brief
Her target audience was very specific: women in their 40s who are moving through grief, wanting to write a book and make writing a practice for life. We talked about her themes and what she wanted from the cover over a Zoom call. She wanted to convey themes of feminism, strength, courage, boldness, vibrancy, spirituality, nature and community.
Conforming to genre
The first concept was a very simple one. The book’s genre is self-help and spirituality, as well as writing. I wanted to use some of the conventions of those genres in at least one of the cover concepts. This one explores the idea of growth and transformation while still being quite minimalist. In a bright colour, this would look right at home in the self-improvement or writing sections of a bookshop.
Branching out
For something more feminine, I tried using two faces in profile with flowering tree branches representing growth. I liked the symmetry, but this cover seemed a little too plain.
Forging a new path
This was one of my favourites. It works more with the idea of a creative journey (and creating your own path) and feels very tied to nature. There was also the possibility of hiding some female forms in the trees in the foreground. I thought this one could look fantastic as a paper collage with different colours and textures.
Blossoming
And finally, we have the concept we ended up going with. The flowers I’ve chosen are based on the Victorian language of flowers. We have marigolds for grief, protea for transformation and clematis for creativity. I also suggested adding some yarrow to mean ‘a cure for a broken heart.’ These flowers would lend themselves to a strong colour palette too.
And indeed, this is the direction we decided to go in. Carolyn asked for a few adjustments to the faces. She wanted them looking out at the viewer. We also changed up the typography. I hand-lettered the title so that it looked more like script handwriting to match the writing theme.
The final design
Here’s how the final design came together! Big, bold flowers have been a big trend across many genres of book covers recently and I think it will be sticking around for a while.
