A Novel Cover Up is a semi-regular feature that looks at how covers are designed. Thanks to Macmillan Children's Books, I have been fortunate enough to have a guest post from their Art Director Rachel Vale about how she designed the paperback cover for A Thousand Nights by E. K. Johnston. All images in this post are used with permission. They can be clicked to be enlarge.
A Thousand Nights paperback – for those of you who don’t know the story – is a magical tale of love and survival in a captivating retelling of Arabian Nights. It’s incredibly evocative, mysterious and magical.For the hardback edition it was all about capturing the opulence and magic of story in a wonderfully desirable package. For the paperback edition we wanted to keep the opulence but introduce a filmic quality that was more photographic/photorealistic – highlighting the epic Arabian landscape and our protagonist, Scheherazade. So, epic landscape + female reference + pretty.
