There's been a lot of interest around this project so I figured it would be fun to shed some light on it by sharing some of the process. Receiving lots creative freedom is rare with projects of this profile, but after I spoke with Creative Director, Anne Twomey, it was obvious that it was going to be a great experience. Since the book takes place in the art world, one of the challenges was to ensure that the cover art didn't appropriate one particular artist. (...except for me, I guess?)
As you can see from the sketches, there were basically two directions that I refined. The first one, a clean and bold direction inspired a bit by Ed Ruscha. Anne mentioned Ruscha's name during our initial conversation and it stuck with me during the sketch phase, maybe because Ruscha also had some significance to Mr. Martin. From the start of the project, I aimed for it to be on a solid white background to ensure it would stand out against other covers. The other direction is more script-like and now that I'm looking at it, I don't know what I was thinking because it's not very sophisticated at all. Since imperfections help make things unique and beautiful, I felt it was important that the final lettering contained imperfections, ie: the R and N in Martin. The T in Object is slightly off kilter, etc...
Originally, there were discussions that the cover lettering be a die-cut, allowing for a painting underneath to show through. However, we opted against that and chose a paper stock that emulated canvas. The lettering was also hit with an ultra high gloss. Seeing it online doesn't do it enough justice, you really need to see it in person...and buy it. For the end papers, the only direction I received was to create something inspired by Abstract Expressionism and Colour Field painting. I'm extremely happy with how the overall project turned out and I'm glad people are responding well to it. If it's ever made into a movie, I'd love to do the poster for it.
