Recently, I was approached by writer Joe Bardin about designing a book cover for his upcoming essay collection Outlier Heart, a memoir of, as the subtitle states, his "life as an immortalist."
I didn't know what an immortalist was. He talked about being on a journey of transhumanism—another word I was unfamiliar with—which translates to, according to some googling, "the belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology." Here's a snippet of quote from an article I found in The Guardian: “It is their belief that we can and should eradicate aging as a cause of death...” To get more specific about author Joe Bardin's take, here's a passage that Joe sent me, from his book:
In the name of living forever, I did stupid things and I did meaningful things. But at some point, the logic of mortality simply collapsed inside me. The idea that one could live a good and satisfying life within the confines of, let's say, 80 years, while knowing you're heading, with each passing moment, towards your own oblivion, became an absurdity. It wasn't so much a question of whether immortality was possible as whether mortality was tenable. And it was not.
He had a very specific idea in mind for the cover of the book, and he sent me these two images: a tree of life and a classic heart-with-banner tattoo.
He said this about what he'd like for the design:
I thought he had a cool vision. Of course, you have to get things on the page to find out just how it all will work. Sometimes things don't fit like you need them to. Putting the title of the book on the banner made the title too small for its britches, so I experimented with putting the title above and the subtitle, a very important part of this particular book cover, on that banner. The fonts I used were just stand-ins so I could show Joe and his publisher the layout. The colors, too, were just what I chose at random to start, but I liked the red against the smoky light green.
He liked the direction but started to feel like a circular tree of life was too busy. He said, what if it was more of a straight tree design with the tree growing up out of the heart rather than the heart being in the center. So I started over and made a new tree. Now the length of the banner was a problem, so I gave it a double drape across the heart and cut the subtitle into two pieces. I started working with lettering that was reminiscent of classic tattoos.
Joe and his publisher liked the new heart and tree and the lettering. Incidentally they also liked the color scheme. And they gave me a blurb to add. But now Joe was thinking the banner made the design more whimsical than his book called for. He asked if I could remove it and find a new spot for the subtitle.
I've said before that a lot of putting together a book cover is problem-solving. Sometimes I think that's my favorite part of cover design, trying to make it all work together. Where is the best place to put the subtitle if it can't go on the banner? Does it go directly on the heart? Is there room to put it below the title? Joe asked if I could make the tree's roots come down over the heart, and I thought that might be cool because it may look reminiscent of the veins that run across an actual heart. I repositioned and reduced the tree to give room for the subtitle to go directly below the title.
He liked the direction but started to feel like a circular tree of life was too busy. He said, what if it was more of a straight tree design with the tree growing up out of the heart rather than the heart being in the center. So I started over and made a new tree. Now the length of the banner was a problem, so I gave it a double drape across the heart and cut the subtitle into two pieces. I started working with lettering that was reminiscent of classic tattoos.
Joe and his publisher liked the new heart and tree and the lettering. Incidentally they also liked the color scheme. And they gave me a blurb to add. But now Joe was thinking the banner made the design more whimsical than his book called for. He asked if I could remove it and find a new spot for the subtitle.
I've said before that a lot of putting together a book cover is problem-solving. Sometimes I think that's my favorite part of cover design, trying to make it all work together. Where is the best place to put the subtitle if it can't go on the banner? Does it go directly on the heart? Is there room to put it below the title? Joe asked if I could make the tree's roots come down over the heart, and I thought that might be cool because it may look reminiscent of the veins that run across an actual heart. I repositioned and reduced the tree to give room for the subtitle to go directly below the title.
Once we had a layout we all liked, I took the design, which I'd made in Illustrator, into Paint Shop Pro for shading. Originally Joe had said he liked the idea of the tree being all brown, but now that it was becoming a more realistic tree, with tattoo-like shading, going all brown looked too dead, which was exactly the opposite of what felt appropriate for the subject matter. So the leaves became green and I washed some green into the trunk and branches. Joe had asked if I could try washing some blue into the roots. I liked that idea because, again, it had a vein-like quality—just enough to be reminiscent of a physical heart without being too real.
I experimented with whether to use black outlines like classic tattoos or go outline-less like more modern tattoos, and I tried adding some texture. Joe asked if I could make it look like it was a tattoo on actual skin. That ended up looking strange and a little discomfiting, so we went with a bit of overall grain instead, which gave the design a bit of edginess that felt right.
Outlier Heart is just out.
The paperback is available here.
The eBook version is available here.
Here's a quick excerpt:
Impossibly fervent, intolerably vulnerable, I made my growing up an exercise of mind over body, reason over feeling. I thought everyone did this and assumed adulthood would generate its own sense of connection and substantiation to replace what I'd sacrificed. But the more I hid my haunting, the more ethereal I became, until I almost wasn't present at all. So I started living by my outlier heart, and I'm seeing where it takes me.
I experimented with whether to use black outlines like classic tattoos or go outline-less like more modern tattoos, and I tried adding some texture. Joe asked if I could make it look like it was a tattoo on actual skin. That ended up looking strange and a little discomfiting, so we went with a bit of overall grain instead, which gave the design a bit of edginess that felt right.
Outlier Heart is just out.
The paperback is available here.
The eBook version is available here.
Here's a quick excerpt:
Impossibly fervent, intolerably vulnerable, I made my growing up an exercise of mind over body, reason over feeling. I thought everyone did this and assumed adulthood would generate its own sense of connection and substantiation to replace what I'd sacrificed. But the more I hid my haunting, the more ethereal I became, until I almost wasn't present at all. So I started living by my outlier heart, and I'm seeing where it takes me.
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