James Iacobelli on Designing Matt Gallagher's Empire City
James Iacobelli is a graduate of the New York School of Visual Arts and has worked for Harper Collins and St. Martin's Press before joining Atria as Art Director. Here he talks us through his process for designing Matt Gallagher’s Empire City.
Dystopian, apocalyptic, and super-powered soldiers — this was all the direction I needed.
Empire City is a darkly funny novel about a country on the precipice of a major upheaval. An alternate American history with protests and violence erupting throughout the country. My initial idea was to have the title built into the city buildings, crumbling, fires, smoke, the works.
I got started, by mapping out the ideas in Photoshop.
I quickly realized these would be too complicated: Strike 1.
After my 4th espresso, I was back on track.
My second idea had no energy: Strike 2.
The third idea was actually my favorite. No doubt about it, a homerun!
I looked over my work the next morning, and realized it was still lacking urgency. I thought about the similarities between this story and what was going on in real life.
How do I communicate a city under distress in a more immediate way? It needed to be more like a live action shot, a foreboding bird’s eye view shot with breaking news type!
My first attempt, the city was too recognizable. I needed the city to read more abstract.
Then, I finally found the perfect shot on Shutterstock.
I toyed around with the color, and wrote out the author's name to humanize the concept and off to the author it went.
After a few color tweaks, this was the final.
Final cover
Editor, artworker and lifelong bibliophile.