Friday Flourish: Much of Madness

Happy Friday Everyone!

Today I'm crazy excited to share with you another of the covers from my teaser grid a little while back, and it's one that many of you tagged in the comments as being the one you were most curious about.

One of my very favorite parts of cover design is the wide variety of genres I get work within as well as the style of artwork I get to create and manipulate in order to suit the story. As a wedding stationer for 10 years, I did a lot of repetitive artwork like monograms and floral patterns, and it was the rare client who really wanted something outside the box (not an insult to my clients, just the nature of wedding stationery in general). Now, however, every project presents a new and unique challenge for me, and as soon as I saw author S.E. Summa's Pinterest inspiration board for her Southern Gothic Horror novel Much of Madness, I knew I was in for a treat.

For this cover S.E. really wanted the gothic feel to shine through, with rich colors and textures accentuating a skull focal point (a design element that will be carried through to each book in the series - YAY!). The choice of type, while always a vital aspect of any cover, was even more important with Much of Madness to reinforce the overall aesthetic and really create a brand identity for the series as a whole.

S.E. was able to beautifully articulate what she was looking for with this design from the beginning, something that is far harder than it sounds, and together I think we created something striking. I hope you guys think so as well!

MUCH OF MADNESS

Releases 2/29

Seraphina Pearce doesn't know what's more frustrating: her magic's affinity for death, her best friend's transformation into an albino Sin Eater, or that simply touching a guy she loves means someone's headed to the morgue.

After a sin-eating job goes awry, she casts a risky spell and butts heads with a handsome stranger in order to win an infamous grimoire.

Marceau L'Argent is the last person she should confide in because the occult cat burglar has a mysterious past, and he's made it no secret he also wants the grimoire. He recognizes her dark magic and offers his unique help as a rare curse breaker. If all that weren't enough, Marceau causes butterflies in her stomach—a feeling she'd long thought dead.

Seraphina was only trying to break her curse—not piss off Death himself.

MUCH OF MADNESS is a Southern Gothic Horror story about loyalty, sacrifice, and maintaining hope no matter the odds.

 

Find S.E. and Much of Madness:

Website • Facebook • Twitter • Goodreads • Amazon

You can check out more of my cover design work at Seedlings Design Studio!  

Friday Flourish: Black Heart, Red Ruby

Happy Friday Everyone!

I'm super excited today to share another of my recent cover designs, this one for author Teresa Yea who I had the privilege of working with on Love in a Time of Monsters. Teresa never fails to come to me with a project that makes me positively giddy at the thought of working on it, and given how madly in love I was with the way Monsters came together I couldn't wait to team up with her again on her newest release, Black Heart, Red Ruby.

Black Heart, Red Ruby is contemporary gothic horror, so we originally discussed a design that would be dark in nature–lots of blacks and reds combining to create a bold, heavy look–with the heroine as a focal point. After submitting the first round of idea boards, Teresa and I ended up back at the drawing board, realizing the direction in which we'd been heading just wasn't suiting the story the way we'd hoped.

We came to the conclusion that we needed to simplify, keeping the design very graphic, type-driven, and full of grit and texture. You guys already know how obsessed I am with typography, so I couldn't be happier with how the final design turned out. I hope you all love it and decide to add it to your reading lists!

BLACK HEART, RED RUBY

(releases June 30th)

Ava Nolan grew up in the shadow of her father's obsession with macabre artifacts. An elixir brewed from witches’ blood. A cabinet of mummified cats. And Arabella's Curse, the missing prize in his collection: a ruby with the power to resurrect the dead. With a father who resents her existence, a dead-end job, and her expulsion from school to live down, Ava sets out to recover the ruby and reclaim her self-respect. Luckily for Ava, local legend says the ruby is buried in a crumbling mansion by the sea, not far from her new home.

But life as an amateur relic hunter is not without its share of emergency room visits. Or cutthroat competitors. And nearly plummeting to her death doesn’t terrify Ava half as much as her uncle, a gentleman grave robber with a vendetta against her father and sinister plans for the ruby.

Entangled in a web of family treachery, Ava finds solace with a lonely boy who fills her nights with stolen kisses and her head with ruby lore. But there's something strange about Ben Wolcott. He's a bit too cunning, a bit too preoccupied with keeping Ava out of his basement, and much too interested in Arabella's Curse.

Find Black Heart, Red Ruby:

Goodreads • Amazon • iBooks • Kobo • Google Play

Find Teresa:

Website • Twitter • Facebook

You can find more of my cover design work at Seedlings Design Studio!