I’ve been slowly working on finishing a sort of short-story or non-novel about a wedding I attended a few years ago. The wedding sets the backdrop for thoughts about love and relationships, life and death, the normal stuff I think too much about. Naturally, once you write the book, you need to represent it somehow, everyone reads a book by its cover, or at the very least the cover leaves a mental image in the mind of the reader. So in the process of writing I needed to eventually design a front and back cover.
At first I wanted to go a bit Retro and started stared with a simple uniform yellow background with the American Peyote logo and the working title: Wedding Trip. The title was never a set thing, it sounded sort of cool, but after it was written I wasn’t happy and in the end I expanded it to: “Revolt from the Singles Table” For me this works on many levels, giving a preview of what to expect and it also reflects the tone of the book. Since I work a lot with layering and concrete or grunge textures mixed with portraits, it seemed logical that I’d add that to the book cover and give it some grittiness. This visual texture also reflects the tone and feeling I’m trying to communicate in the book.
The author name is there to reflect two of the main characters which were the inspiration for the writing style of Wedding Trip, Tyler Durden and Hunter S. Thompson. The desire to do this is somehow linked to the idea that a person writes in a certain voice, and the voice I use for the blog is different from the one I use for research publications, and somehow I wanted to put this on the cover as well. Maybe it’s also because in a research publication you always cite where different ideas were coming from, it’s another theme I’m playing with in Wedding Trip.
For the back cover I stayed with a bit of 70’s retro styling and layered colored rectangles over one another with a solid black background. The American Peyote logo is added with Gonzo sitting prominently there as well. It sort of makes me think of a rainbow tunnel, like the one I used to walk through at the Detroit Institute of Arts when I visited with my mom. It also reminds me a bit of A Clockwork Orange and the visuals from the movie. Strange how all these things get mixed up in the head.
So, now we’re nearly set for the soft launch. I’m waiting for the test copy to come back from Lulu.com, where I decided to publish it. In the digital age you have the option of being the author, published, marketer, and designer for a book, and it’s been fantastic doing these things on the side when I’m bored with climbing, uninspired to do photography, or need a break from Science.x I’ve decided to offer it as a low low introductory price, initially without an ISBN number and then expand it to a proper release later on if I decide to Go Pro.
Update
I’ve finished with all the madness and put up an edition for sale on lulu.com