Creating a Mysterious Book Cover With Designer Alex Eckman-Lawn
Hi there, I’m Alex, the illustrator behind the cover for Clever Creatures of the Night. I want to walk you through my process for making this cover, and also share some behind the scenes anarchy aka my sketch phase wherein I catapult ideas at my poor art director and hope they can harness the chaos of my brain to point me in a good direction. Luckily, I think we came to a good solution for this one, but it’s wild to look at all the different ways it could have gone.
I tend to get carried away at the sketch phase and show up with a bunch of options. My medium (mostly collage) really enables this toxic behavior. In other words, I’m maybe not the best example of how to approach this kind of work so maybe think of this as equal parts instructional and cautionary. With that out of the way let’s dig into the art!
I was approached by Aurora Parlagreco at Algonquin Books because she had seen a cut paper piece I made for a gallery show and thought the general vibe/color/subject matter would be a good fit for this project. This is always a really cool way to start a project for me because I feel like I’ve already got a running start. In this case the image was “The Gardener,” Aurora felt the combination of figure and scenery/animals was a good match for the themes in the book and after some more discussion of the specifics of the book (and sending me a copy of the manuscript! Always love when this can happen!) I jumped face first into trying out some options.
The biggest challenge for me here is shifting my thinking from gallery focused cut paper work that can be basically whatever I want, to an image that conveys specific concepts. Basically switching from a more open stream of consciousness image making to my pee-wee little problem-solving brain. I happen to think limitations often make for more interesting art so this is a fun challenge as far as I’m concerned. We agreed that focussing on the house as our main subject was probably the way to go but I couldn’t resist trying a few figure based options as well. Here are my initial concepts that I hurled at the AD (Thanks for harnessing the chaos, Aurora).
The last sketch I made was the one we ultimately went with and looking at them now it’s funny how much that feels like the right choice. Next step is to switch to dum-dum mode and just refine and clean up the image, add highlights, refine forms, all the satisfying stuff that I can do in a near catatonic state. Finally a break from my brain!
Okay, I think things are looking pretty good now. We lost the dress on our house-perched protag, adjusted the spacing for text, added some critters and light source stuff to make everything sing. You might notice we used the sky treatment from the first sketch as well, adding that spooky black moon. Next up is maybe my favorite part! Unfortunately I have to actually use my brain again (exhausting).
I got to expand the art out for the full wrap around- a chance for me to go buckwild adding plants, birds, little insects, hiding fun details around wherever I can. This is so much fun for me, and lets me slip into the collage fugue state where I’m a pure composition machine, cutting and moving bits all around until I forget I’m actually sitting in my goofy two room apartment instead of lying in the grass near this house, listening to the river burble while snakes and plants slowly overtake me (the dream).
Lastly I just wanted to include the final cover and spotlight the text, how it’s woven into the image so plants and animals overlap in key spaces. This is like a magic trick to me, I’m always so excited to see it. The result feels so integrated to me, and very satisfying. I hope you feel the same way!
We started from a place where I was already comfortable, my own personal work, and expanded from there. Aurora let me stretch out in a few directions, explore options that didn’t totally work but lead us to the right place eventually. I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to contribute my art to such a cool book, and particularly grateful to work with a team that let me explore possibilities in my own unhinged way. In the end I’m really happy with the cover and I was able to enjoy every step of the process. In my experience, this always leads to best results.
About the Book
In this gripping literary horror, Case’s best friend Drea goes missing, forcing her into a bizarre, cultlike—and possibly murderous world—perfect for fans of The Honeys and Mexican Gothic.Something bad happened here.When Case arrives at a run-down, ivy-covered house tucked deep in the West Texas woods, an ashy haze lingers in the air and the sky is tissue-paper pink. Her best friend Drea has been living here with a few classmates Case has never met, and Drea asked her to visit in a letter dated two weeks ago.But now Drea is nowhere to be found.Drea’s roommates can’t—or won’t—answer questions, leaving Case to search alone. She finds bits of Drea’s journal hidden in the tiles of the bathroom wall, in a beat-up cooler by the muddy river, wedged into the frame of her closet door. As Case pieces together Drea’s life in this strange house, the roommates’ behavior puts her increasingly on edge—and she’s not the only one. The animals nearby are lashing out, attacking each other, threatening the humans.Something bad happened in this house. Something that must be connected to Drea’s disappearance. And if she gets too close to the truth, Case just might be next.
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