Covers are tricky. You want to make sure the themes and the tone of the book are visible for readers at a glance. The cover should give them a sense of whether the book is funny, scary, an adventure or a love story. And you have to fit your images around all that lovely big title text, and make sure it's eye-catching enough to stand out in a sea of other books.
When I'm making a cover for the Watts and Whiskerton books I start by making little sketches of all my ideas and then I send them to the art director, Dominica. Sometimes I have a favourite, but usually I don't, but I do have a sense of what might work. I usually send all my ideas in case a bit of one might inspire an idea I haven't thought of. Dominica and the editor, Ella, have a look and let me know me their favourite. Here are the sketches I sent for book three...
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| There's a snow beast in the book I wanted to hint at. |
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| We always need a detective-y thing happening like searching with a magnifying glass. |
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| There's also a missing person. |
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One of these made it to the cover.
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Once we've agreed which drawing we like I draw a more detailed version with some colour ideas.
We tried a few different sky colours.
The art director gives advice on colours and any other thoughts she has, and then I set to work on the final cover. We'll send it back and forth a few times tweaking colours and details until we're both happy with it. Here's the final front cover...
And now to the back cover!
Strangely, the covers are made at different times. The front cover is usually made before the book artwork has begun and the back cover is the last thing we do.
There's less space on the back cover because of all the text. We also feature images of the other Watts and Whiskerton books which creates a slightly awkward space to draw around. Here are my ideas for the back cover. You can see I'm trying out different jokes as well as images.
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| Snowball fight anyone? |
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| I quite liked the ice skating. |
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| One of these made it to the cover. |
Once we've agreed the final image we go through the same process as the front cover: colour tests, doing proper drawing, sending the image back and forth with notes until we have the final back cover...
