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On Design: Everything you say matters…What not to do.
When talking to an Illustrator or Designer – everything you say matters.
The word “Design” means “To Solve”. A book design solves the problem of communicating the value of that book to the reader/customer.
A great cover takes many things into account, and a professional artist will tie everything that matters into a single proposal. When you respond with “suggestions” – you MUST understand that any one thing changed affects many other things and may completely unravel the cover. The artist you hire will either do exactly as you ask and give you crap, or they will make all of the necessary adjustments to account for the requested change.
When you provide information (text, notes, etc.) for the cover artist – that’s it. It’s done. You can never add to it later and you certainly can’t change it. The illustrator is responsible for making every other decision – and second guessing them refers to the earlier point that you probably aren’t considering everything artist did in order to get it to the point you are seeing.
You must expect this. You must commit to this.
Here are some examples of projects gone sour:
Example 1: An arrow has direction – it points places. A figure holding an arrow will use that arrow to point somewhere in the piece to lead the viewers eye. If William Tell is holding an arrow, and someone requests the arrow to be changed into an apple, almost everything else in the piece will have to change. Why? Because an apple is a big round red “STOP SIGN”. It won’t lead the viewer to anything. It destroys the flow and the storytelling and the drama of a piece that is expecting an arrow. Early in the stages of design, when everything is just pencil sketches, this kind of request makes perfect sense because ideas are still being fleshed out. But after that – you can’t change your mind without sabotaging your own product. A request late late forces the artist to either just do it for you and give you a crap cover or redo the entire thing up to that point (which can piss them off if you aren’t paying them enough, and then they will avoid doing their best work because their best has already proven to be pearls before swine).
Example 2: Details. You must commit to your details AND the illustrator’s vision and let them combine into a great cover. Provide exact details that are important then hire the illustrator for their creative decision-making on everything you don’t provide them. Theirs will be different than yours — embrace that. If you can do it yourself, then do it yourself. No artist on earth will make the same decisions as you…and frankly, if you aren’t a trained artist – they will always do it better than you. I have seen illustrators receive instructions from authors to illustrate characters that have no written description in the text. Really. Then the author gets picky about the actual depiction. One time, the author insisted “Whatever feels right to you” and the illustrator finished an entire painting. On the final review, the author said “I’ve been thinking the last couple weeks that I might want the character to have this specific skin color and be bald. But I’m not sure. Can you entirely repaint it to show me what that will look like before I decide?” The illustrator said no and the author was almost murdered in their sleep. Don’t be that wishy-washy moron. The artist will tell everyone about you. Fewer will want to work with you and those who do will raise their rates to cover your incompetence. If you ever used the phrase “I will know it when I see it”, shame yourself and never use it again.
Example 3: Colors. Recently, an illustrator I know was hired for cover featuring a black character. The client agreed to the character, the theme, and the color-palette. Then after the painting began, the client requested a new color palette based on another piece the illustrator had created for someone else. That piece featured a white character…and the colors were too dark for Black skin. The only solution for the illustrator was to give the the client a painting that was complete garbage – or to redesign to piece to make the colors work. The illustrator had to invent new light sources to justify highlighting the face differently. Those new lighting sources had to come from somewhere, but while natural light can be expected to reflect from natural sources, the requested unnatural light must have its sources explained (magical fire? floating orbs? glowing jewels?). But those solution were not part of the original design, so the entire pose had to change. Light reflects (like a mirror) and every one of those reflective surfaces must use the correct angle to illuminate properly. And after the illustrator spent dozens of hours explaining and fixing and repainting, the client argued every step of the way out of their ignorance. They didn’t trust her. They didn’t pay attention. They didn’t listen. They didn’t make logical decisions. They dismissed her superior experience. The ruined the cover. They ruined their relationship with her. And they undermined their reputation with their readers/customers because the final product they demanded is…underwhelming.
Example 4: DON’T DESIGN BY COMMITTEE. One voice. One decision maker. All the time. Yes, you can get other’s input – but only one person makes the final decision and that decision is final. Actual things I have heard: “Well, i showed this to my neighbor’s wife who picked out great curtains and she doesn’t like the colors.” “The president of the company wants it this way…(artist spends half a week changing it)…but they don’t have any say in it (artist has to be restrained from murder).” “So we took what you did and then changed it in photoshop before putting in front of a test group and they didn’t like it (meaning: they didn’t like the butt-ugly badly designed modification, so we’re blaming you).” “Person 1: Give them a helmet. Person 2: take off the helmet. Person 3: How about a crown. Person 1: I approved a Helmet. Person 2: I’m the final decision maker so don’t listen to anyone else. Person 3: Where’s the crown? Person 2: Just before going to press, Person 4 wants you to give them a helmet – but I’m the final decision maker.” If you do this and cost the artist time and money, you go down in history on the black list of bad clients. FYI: This process is mandatory in the corporate world, which is why corporate pays many times more for art than your tiny book cover. When I explain that Echo was paid over $30,000 for a single work of art (several times), it was because she had to suffer through that process – they just paid her for her sanity to survive it.
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Yes – there will be times when the artist didn’t follow instructions. They gave you a castle with three towers instead of four. They painted a feathered dragon instead of scaly one. But when that happens, you can confidently point to the text and notes and say they need to change it…But if you don’t say “four towers” or “scaly” or “green glowing light” or “bald black man” at first, you are responsible for paying the artist for all the extra work you caused for being disorganized or illogical. Remember – artists get paid based on their time, and they have other projects to get to besides yours. If you are paying for 20 hours and your changes cause it to take 40, they may decide that abandoning you completely is more profitable for them than to deal with you. Plus they will talk about you to others.
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