This is the most recently completed cover of a series I've worked on for the UK author Alexander McCall Smith. A lovely group of mystery books and an even lovelier art department to work with (Little Brown UK).
A. Richard Allen sent me a nice note about these books recently, as he'd seen them there in the UK recently. Thanks for the kind words, Richard.
Here are some of the earlier covers.
The challenge in these designs has been to bring detail and mystery to very simple spaces. Add to that an attempt at capturing specific qualities of very specific locations within Britain and Scotland, all while attempting to capture some of the mystery of the narrative.
I always enjoy the challenge of creating an iconic look for a series. With these, I settled on the font and horizontal bands on the first book as it looked good for the elements that existed in that particular book. The challenge continues in applying the "branded design" in the subsequent books, making them work compositionally and as a series.
On most of these I've been asked to do some back cover artwork as well. This is an image for the most recent book.
