Friday 29 October 2010

A truly international project

The World is definitely shrinking



Autumn and winter Yorkshire can sometimes feel cold, dark and very long, sometimes starting in September and going right through to the end of the following August.


Recently I have been working on a project which has transported me to the heat of Thailand and Australia. I have been working with Simon Royle, based in Thailand, on his thriller, Tag, set 100 years from now. We have been speaking over Skype where, as the wind whistles round my studio, I can hear the cicadas and the occasional frog. Simon gave me creative carte blanche which is always a generous act where, as the author, he is so close to the project. One of the challenges of this cover is that as it will be both an ebook and printed book the cover has to work both for print and as a very small preview image in online stores.


After we had discussed the initial concepts Simon put me in touch with a very fine photographer Markus Summerer, who has produced the wonderful image for the cover. Markus has been great to work with, very open to suggestion and then adding his own spectacular creativity.


We started by having a long discussion giving me the chance to get under the skin of the project. Following this I came up with some different concepts which again we discussed over Skype. Markus, based in New South Wales, Australia, then produced a variety of images based on the agreed concept. We then reviewed these and asked for a couple of revisions which were turned round in a few days. We were very lucky that he produced 3 images all of which could have been used. In the end we chose the one seen above.


The ability to talk and work across such vast distances and time zones in some ways seems to reflect the spirit of the book. I look forward to further intercontinental collaborations. I am pleased to say that Simon is happy with the results as well


And now it is back to the autumn in the UK and starting work on the typography for the print version of the book. You can keep up with Simon's blog and writing at http://www.simon-royle.com/



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