Emma Ewbank on Designing a Truly Original Cover for Losing the Plot
Emma Ewbank is a freelance designer, who has worked in the publishing industry for over 15 years. The companies she has previously worked in-house for include: HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Bloomsbury. Here she takes us through her process for designing a remarkable cover for Derek Owusu’s Losing the Plot.
Losing the Plot is a novel about a son’s search to understand his mother’s past. This beautiful piece of work explores a young woman who has been uprooted from her homeland of Ghana to the grey streets of Tottenham, London, and having to adapt to a hostile and isolating cultural environment. Working three jobs as well as trying to raise a family. The narrative is experimental, even hard to read at times, written in prose poem English and Twi (Ghanaian dialect), as well as being commented upon by the son from the margins of the book. Being such an experimental piece of writing, this was a dream book to land in my lap, as the cover would also have to reflect this unusual creative style in some way. I was also aware of the excitement and high hopes that the publisher had for this book.
The task to design the cover was a huge privilege, if not a little daunting to give the writing inside justice. The brief from the publisher was that they were quite keen to portray a woman with a baby on her back, and that it could be photographic or illustrative. So this is where I started. I looked at photographs and bold typography, as well as using the photographs in a more experimental way. Below are two different ways of how the photography could have been used. The second with painted typography that unconventionally surrounds the image.
I then came across this beautiful image of a woman and her baby by James Pease Blair. When I saw it, I thought, ‘that is the cover!’ (although was later proven wrong). The look of sadness in the eyes of the young girl holding the baby just seemed to get over the tone of the book. I thought perhaps making the photograph centre stage of the cover could be interesting. Making the title, author name and quotes very small on the yellow boards underneath, which were revealed by diamond shaped cutouts in the jacket, would also create a bit of intrigue.
As the brief wanted to look at illustrative options too, I started to think of how I might do this. Drawing upon the text, I quite liked the combination of the love that the mother and son had for each other, as well as the disconnected nature of their relationship. For example, the son’s disinterest in his mother’s Ghanaian roots when she offers him some traditional Ghanaian sweet bread, as well as the mother’s expression of love being less vocally communicated to the son. In this first very rough illustration I quite liked the idea of hands outstretching to each other but not touching. The smaller hands being the child’s which connected into the mother’s hands like a sort of puzzle.
I went back to the brief of illustrating the mother and the baby. I quite liked the idea of having abstract, Matisse-like figures. I also created playful type surrounding the illustration, a bit like on my previous visual with the photograph, which echoed the creative writing inside. I also thought it was important that the head of the mother was turned away from the baby, but there was also a tender hand protecting it too. This emulated the combination of the great love and disconnected nature of their relationship.
Final cover
All these versions went to the publisher and it seemed there was a unanimous preference for the illustrative mother and baby, and the author felt it was right too. Getting the cover right in the first round is a rare thing, and a great outcome for everyone involved. The only change I had to do was add another quote. However, this cover, already having a lot of text on it, ran the risk of looking overly busy with another quote. But it seemed to work as white text reading out of the body of the woman.
Full cover
For the back cover I used the idea of the outstretched hand from the previous visual, but made it into a spiral which the text would follow. This echoed the way the type spiralled round on the front cover. Including black flaps gave a bit of contrast to the front and back - this free flowing dynamic scratchy pattern fitted in well with the playfulness of the cover. Rafi Romaya, the Art Director, also thought using the same pattern as end papers would really bring the whole package together, which I agreed with. This was an amazing, rare project to work on, and I feel very grateful to have had the opportunity to create a cover for such an experimental piece of writing by a very talented author.
Editor, artworker and lifelong bibliophile.