{"id":27983,"date":"2015-01-29T06:30:38","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T17:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=27983"},"modified":"2015-01-27T21:23:55","modified_gmt":"2015-01-27T08:23:55","slug":"sff-cover-art-love-some-favourites-reflections-on-why-they-work-for-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/01\/29\/sff-cover-art-love-some-favourites-reflections-on-why-they-work-for-me\/","title":{"rendered":"SFF Cover Art Love: Some Favourites—& Reflections On Why They “Work” For Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gameofthronesp\"<\/a>I\u00a0 first posted on some of my favourite SFF cover art <\/a>a-ways back in 2010.<\/p>\n

Those featured included the first, US mass market cover for A Game Of Thrones<\/em><\/strong>, by artist Stephen Youll. As I posted at the time, “…the whole look of it [the jacket]\u00a0 just reached out to me and said: \u201cBuy me, I\u2019m your kind of story!\u201d And it really was!”<\/em><\/p>\n

I also mentioned the Mel Odom cover for Guy Gavriel Kay’s Tigana<\/em><\/strong> and the wonderful Kinuko Craft jacket for Juliet Marillier’s Wildwood Dancing<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Blue<\/a>Others I’d throw into the “favourites” mix include the Donato cover for Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind<\/em><\/strong>, a UK mass market cover for Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword<\/em><\/strong>, and the jacket art for James Norcliffe’s The Assassin Of Gleam<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"WildwoodDancing2\"<\/a>But then I got to thinking about why they’re favourites: what causes each of these jacket renderings to “speak” to me in a way that then draws me in to reading the book?<\/p>\n

I believe all are powerful in their diverse ways and an important aspect of\u00a0 their power is that all have a strong central figure but with a sense of a larger world—whether it’s the physical landscape of winter in A Game Of Thrones<\/em><\/strong>, the towers\/soldiers of Tigana<\/em><\/strong>, or the tree roots and flame in the circle surrounding the central figures of woman and demon in The Blue Sword<\/em><\/strong>. In that sense, all three jackets evoke a sense of both the characters and the world, and the big-in-scope stories.<\/p>\n

\"name<\/a>I think, as well, that\u00a0 juxtaposition is an important element in many of them: the flame of Kvothe’s hair against the darker background which is both trees (living\/animate) and stone (inanimate) for The Name Of The Wind<\/em><\/strong>; the juxtaposition of Hari and the demon rider in The Blue Sword<\/em><\/strong>; and the black rider (yay, Jon Snow!), horse and crow (moving) against the (still) white-grey background of the A Game Of Thrones<\/em><\/strong> jacket.<\/p>\n

\"tigana_1\"<\/a>Subtler details also have a powerful influence, like the woman (Dianora) being ‘face forward’ in the Tigana<\/em> <\/strong>cover and directly set against the side-profile warriors, while their ‘horizontality contrasts with the ‘verticality’ of the background towers—and the scene’s sense of movement comes from the scarlet banner.<\/p>\n

\"Assassin<\/a>Despite it’s strong sense of darkness, there’s movement in The Assasin Of Gleam<\/em> <\/strong>cover, too: in the edges of the cloak and the sense of the rider coming straight toward you.<\/p>\n

The contrasts of character & world, together with the juxtapositions, work together to make the images compelling. But the other element they share is a sense of mystery, sparking the desire to know more: I want to know who the riders are, on the A Game Of Thrones<\/em><\/strong> and The Assasin Of Gleam <\/em><\/strong>covers: where they’re going and on what business?<\/p>\n

Similarly, the whole of Kvothe’s appearance—the hair, the torn shirt, the book in one hand and the musical instrument in the other—all provoke a “Who is he? What’s going on?” response. Similarly, the juxtaposition of Hari (The Blue Sword<\/em><\/strong>) Dianora (Tigana<\/em><\/strong>), and Jena (Wildwood Dancing<\/em><\/strong>)—all full face against their respective backgrounds—draw you in through the desire to resolve the elements in the respective covers, which convey a rich sense of “story” to be encountered and explored.<\/p>\n

\"Among<\/a>The other element that is present in all the covers is a feeling of ‘movement’, which I mentioned above. Interestingly, many of the same elements are also present in the cover of Among Others<\/strong><\/em> (recently read and reported on here<\/a>.) The jacket has the foreground figure of the young girl dancing (movement) against a mysterious ‘dreaming spires’ background, while the circle of stars about the girl adds to both the sense of movement and mystery… Perhaps not surprisingly , it ‘drew’ me to the book.<\/p>\n

So there you have it, a few more favourite covers and some of the reasons they may “work” for me as a reader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u00a0 first posted on some of my favourite SFF cover art a-ways back in 2010. Those featured included the first, US mass market cover for A Game Of Thrones, by artist Stephen Youll. As I posted at the time, “…the whole look of it [the jacket]\u00a0 just reached out to me and said: \u201cBuy me, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funstuff","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27983"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28006,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27983\/revisions\/28006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}