Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Facelifts vol.3

Here is another re-design we are sneaking into the re-print process. I'm not sure when the next Worlds of Exile reprint will come to press but when it does, it'll look like this.

From the designer, Jamie Stafford-Hill:

"I loved getting to work on this cover---Le Guin is one of my absolute favorite authors---but it was unusually stressful, for the same reason. The book, actually three separate novels connected just enough to work fairly well as one volume, has for me a sort of vast sense of location -- settings where the main character is in some way isolated and/or struggling to exist around the edges (or remnants) of human civilization. The photo by Eden Batki captured that tone, and helped represent the chronological and thematic relationship between the stories as well."

7 comments:

kaolin fire said...

I'm curious about the process, there--what part is photo, what part photoshop; how many people were involved in creating that image? :)

Anonymous said...

Excluding the good folks at NASA who are responsible for the moon, only two people were involved here. Eden took the landscape boardwalk photo, which, while in some ways perfect for the job, did not say "science fiction book" on it's own. Color adjustments and a few effects in photoshop pushed it towards SF, and the looming moon (scifi insurance) was simply layered into the background. Photoshop work and type/cover layout was all done by the designer.

kaolin fire said...

I was definitely wondering how the moon snuck in. Thanks!

I'll have to dig deeper to find the original boardwalk image.

kaolin fire said...

I forgot to say--that's really a beautiful cover, and I love the how the three titles are split.

chrisa511 said...

Wow! What a beautiful cover. Please keep us updated on when this edition goes into print. I love it!

Anonymous said...

That's the boardwalk leading at the Oxrafoss waterfall, near Thingvellir in Iceland. It's formed where a river pours over the edge of a rift where the North American and European tectonic plates are separating. It is wicked cool.

Anonymous said...

A great cover, a great photo, you two have got your act together!