Photoshop & traditional media
Tony DiTerlizzi refreshes his cover for The Search for WondLa to celebrate an anniversary and its upcoming TV adaptation
Creating a dust jacket that stands out amid a store packed full of bestselling books is a tremendous challenge, especially if it’s an older title. To compete with flashy new releases publishers will periodically redesign the jacket’s artwork.
This might be done to highlight an anniversary or build anticipation for a TV or film adaptation. Fortunately, the WondLa trilogy is celebrating both, with a TV series debuting on Apple TV+ later this year. Since I’m not just the author but the illustrator as well, I felt that this was an exciting opportunity to revisit old friends and introduce them to a new generation of young readers.
Along with the design team, I had to keep in mind the essence of the story and who the intended audience is. The first book from the trilogy, The Search for WondLa, is a middlegrade science-fiction story that has added fantasy elements. Its intended audience is 10 years old and up.
I looked at current jackets for that age range to figure out how to create a package that feels familiar while presenting something new and fresh. For me, that was designing a cover inspired by art nouveau motifs and classic Star Wars movie posters, rendered in a style akin to modernday graphic novels. It’s also a refresh based on the first edition hardcover jacket art from 2010.
Drawing from imagination 1
To appeal to the widest audience possible, I decided on a montage design, inspired by old movie posters from my youth. I wanted the protagonist, Eva Nine, featured prominently at the top, and to also include some of the aliens, creatures and robots that are primary characters in the story. I added some of the strange vegetation as well to give a sense of the otherworldly setting.
Inspiration from the masters 2
I wanted to anchor the characters in a central, circular design, like the composition used in illustrations from master artists such as J.C. Leyendecker, Alphonse Mucha and Norman Rockwell. A central graphic can easily be scaled to give adequate space for the titling and author’s name. At this point, I’m thinking about how to combine the separate elements – the art, titling, author, tagline and background – into one cohesive package.
