Dead Reckoning book cover

I was commissioned by New England author Jane Marks to design the cover for her new book, Dead Reckoning. She asked me to look to her existing book, Dead Tide, as a template for formatting, art style, and font, but colored up in orange (her vision was to have the series of book spines appear as a rainbow when placed in sequential order).

Jane also provided the following direction:

• Side view of a dock with a young woman's silohuette

• Woman in an evening dress and updo, looking out at a sailboat in the background

• A dog by her side, similar to the one on the Dead Tide cover

• Colors: black for the silhouettes and an orange as the primary cover color

Jane's inspiration images that she shared with me

The red cover on the left is the existing artwork for Dead Tide. The orange cover was my Round 1 draft following Jane's direction and inspiration images.

Upon seeing my Round 1 draft, Jane got feedback from her target audience, and passed along the following updated direction:

• Woman should be hotter, elegant, and sassier

• Higher updo with some tendrils

• More rigid posture, with shoulders back

• Put a gun in her hand, passively holding it at her side

• Make the dog look more regal and slightly bigger proportionally

• Put gaps in the wood of the dock to show the water underneath

• Make the cover blue with the sun orange

I went to work executing these changes, and provided three colorway options.

Round 2, in three colorway options

Jane ended up deciding to work with her father to execute a few additional changes, and she ended up at the following product.