My Cover Design Journey

Last October, I was nominated to join the Kids Comics Studio Anthology Cover Committee. In recent posts, I've mentioned bits and pieces about my perspectives on the process, but I've decided to dedicate an entire post to share how the cover developed. The Kids Comics Studio Anthology blog will have an upcoming official blog on the topic and reveal the final cover design.

I knew going in that my fellow Cover Committee members were lightyears beyond my abilities, so it's no surprise that my final design won't be gracing the anthology cover. However, what I created is possibly the coolest thing I've ever made. And that wouldn't exist without my journey over the last 4 months on the cover committee. It may become available as a postcard sized print as an extra in our Kickstarter next month though!

This post is to share my own evolution in this process, because I think the art evolution from initial concept to final submission is pretty dang spectacular.

Brainstorming

Our massive Mural brainstorm!

The three of us met up on zoom for regular meetings starting last November, and the first meetings focused on brainstorming. We wanted to find existing covers and title designs that captured the vibe of our anthology theme and title. Mural was a helpful tool to gather the variety of inspirations into one place.

The Comps

From there, we narrowed down all of the covers into our favorites and the ones we felt really zeroed in on our anthology to create a group of comp covers.

Cover Brief

Using our brainstorming sessions for inspiration, the narrowed down comps, and the anthology theme brief, we created a guiding document to share with the Publication Committe. Our cover brief included the comps we compiled, the poem from the theme brief, our goals, the planned deliverables, and a timeline. This was shared with the Publishing Committee (PubComm).

The anthology’s theme is a mix of “journey”, “community”, and “creatures”.

Genres:  Realism, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Mystery, Memoir, Slice of Life, etc…

Moods:  Cozy, Spooky, Suspenseful, Comedic, etc…

Age Range: Early middle grade and middle grade readers, aged 6-12

Audience: The book will be marketed to middle-grade readers and adult fans of kid’s comics alike.

Our Most important goal:

The book cover is one that the KCU Community would be proud to call their own. A cover that best represents the diverse stories and voices of our creators.

Turns out, fulfilling our cover brief wasn't an easy task! We each had to come up with designs that somehow incorporated that mix of journey, community, and creatures, with the artwork and a title design that work both together and independently. WOOF!

Initial Design

For my initial approach, I was really focused on trying to play up the anthology aspect of the project.

I thought it could be fun to have comic pages creating a hilly landscape where creatures flew above and a variety of characters from the comic were popping out of their panels and waving or interacting.

The logo design would feature compass details to evoke the sense of a journey, which would also be emphasized my the creatures flying off in one direction.

We shared our designs with each other, but for this first round, we didn't share with PubComm. One of my fellow cover committee members felt strongly that we should avoid the mashing together a variety of characters from different style comics. Looking back, I wish that I had continued down this path just to see what the final would have looked like. Alas, with those strong opinions at play, I went a slightly different direction.

Next Iteration

This was just after the holiday break, so time was limited. The one element from my original idea that I wanted to continue with were the origami creatures.

I thought I could utilize the origami creatures to represent the different creatures seen in the anthology comics. This way, different comics could be represented, but not in a mashup of styles.

I decided to go with a basic idea of a kid reading a book, the story itself becoming a journey as the pages turn into creatures. It would be whimsical. This version is really not at all what I envisioned, but I spent time hunting for origami designs for each creature featured in the anthology comics and slapped them all together. It desperately needed editing and direction.

Official First Round

After meeting with the Cover Committee, and discussing our designs, I tried to pick the best elements from my initial concepts. The dragon was too cool to not include!

One feedback asked if my final would be in B&W... hehe...

I missed the sky separation, so I brought that back. My initial sketch of this layout included a bridge over a creek and the origami pugs hopping across stones in the creek. However, it felt like that kind of scene started to pick up the vibes of a fellow committee members cover. She had mermaids swimming down a river and a group of travelers crossing a large tree branch like a bridge.

There are moments I regret not following my gut and going with my sketch, because again, I would like to see how it would have turned out. Alas, I wanted us to present completely different styles and ideas to PubComm, so I went with this kind of papercut or shadow puppet vibe with several kids reading the book with pages magically turning into origami creatures - a more edited collection or creatures with some found in the anthology comics, and some not. Again, the dragon was too cool to leave out!

Feedback from PubComm was invaluable, but it was already clear which way everyone was leaning in terms of the art, but it seemed like my title design stood a chance.

I started to envision my title design as an actual possibility working with the favorite art concept.

Official Second Round

For the second round, we were to submit color roughs. I prefer working in color, so it felt like this was where the fun would really begin. Based on our brainstorming and comps, as a committee we had discussed wanting to go with a foundation of blues and greens.

During our cover committee meeting before our presentation to PubComm, I shared some initial color options and there was a positive response to some warm tones in the sky, so I went with a sunset vibe for my round 2 submission.

Some of the last round's feedback included that the kids sitting felt too stationary for the title "Let's Go!" which made a ton of sense. I tried to incorporate more movement from the kids. Additionally, I played up the glow reflecting on their silhouettes, to address the critique that it felt too flat in the last round. I really liked how the glow on the silhouettes brought them to life.

For the title design, I wanted to elevate what I had previously developed by emphasizing the "x marks the spot" in the exclamation point and worked to make the design more dynamic.

This is something I'm truly proud to say I created: both the stacked and horizontal versions.

If I thought my title design stood a chance of being selected before, I felt even more confident that this elevated version could grace the front cover of our anthology. Until I saw the other two. The person behind the clearly favored art (favored because it is miles beyond anything I can create at this point given my skill set), they revamped their own title design from a corporate looking brand logo to a fun design with movement - it was quite the glow-up. The third title design was classically gorgeous hand-lettering.

PubComm feedback for this round mostly focused on the dislike of the warm tones in the sky and there being too much going on. Unfortunately, there was only one comment left for my title design which was actually a positive for the title design itself but said it couldn't shine against the current artwork due to the competing elements. Overall, I was left with the recommendation to eliminate an element - the vibrant sunset, or the origami, or the magical swirls, or the kids to see if it - and see if it worked better.

Final Cover Submission

Ultimately, it was clear that there was a unanimous love of one specific cover. It wasn't mine. I knew that. We all knew which cover was going to be picked. However, at the last meeting, it had been decided that the covers would be presented to everyone working on the anthologists so they could vote.

This meant that while I knew my cover wasn't going to "win" the coveted cover placement, I felt obligated to make it the best possible version. If it was going out to everyone for review, I knew there were things that needed to be addressed.

With only a few days remaining, I had an epiphany. My cover design had origami creatures, and it had kids, but they weren't interacting much. The coolest element was the origami dragon and it was hanging out on the back. Why wasn't a kid riding off on the origami dragon on the front?!?!?!

What was I thinking?!

Given more time, I'd approach this specific design differently. But I was running out of time, so I needed to make it work within the framework I already had. After a weekend of effort, I finally submitted my final cover design. By the final submission, my cover design had gone through its own transformational journey.

No Spoilers!

I'm not going to share it quite yet since I'm not sure how the reveal plans are going to work for the actual cover, but ultimately, I'm proud of the design, and even more proud of the process and development it went through.

Surprisingly, PubComm decided not to poll everyone and to keep the decision internal. If I had known that they would be polling only PubComm members, I probably would have left my design in its previous iteration and spent that time and effort on my 8-page comic that's due on March 21st. The third cover committee member decided not to submit a final design. I didn't even consider that as an option since I thought it needed to be presented to everyone for voting.

I also wish that we had shown each artwork design with each title design or never combined any title designs with the artwork for presentation. The title that had previously been shown with the corresponding artwork - that had its own glow-up - was chosen in the end. My title design didn't even get a single vote. That hurt. I like to think that if everyone had been polled, it would have gotten at least one vote.

In one of our cover committee discussions, I realized that I was having the same struggle with the cover that I had faced with my comic submission. The theme brief itself was a beast with multiple elements. The submitted stories needed to contain a kid protagonist (not necessarily human, but more about the age of the protagonist), there needed to be some sort of journey (it could be the beginning, middle, end, or merely mentioned in a reference to it happening), and there needed to be an encounter with a creature (real or imagined). Again, WOOF! I felt most inspired by the creatures in my story and am not surprised that the creatures were the highlight of my cover design in each iteration, but by my final submission, I felt like I had each of the elements - but maybe still out of balance.

The "winning" cover does a beautiful job of blending all of the elements - kids, a journey, and creatures - and I do think it's something each anthologist will feel proud to call their own.

Committee goal achieved and my own personal growth unlocked.

*Edit for April 1st... not an April Fool's...

Here is the final evolution of my cover art!