Lynn Buckley on Designing Maaza Mengiste's The Shadow King
Lynn Buckley is an Associate Art Director at Penguin Books. She has also worked at Farrar Straus and Giroux, and Random House, and freelanced for many other publishers. She has awards from The TDC, Print, and the AIGA. Here she talks us through her process for designing the stunning cover for The Shadow King.
I was hired by the amazing Steve Attardo at WW Norton for this cover.
The novel is based on real events: Ethiopian female rebels fought alongside men during Mussoili's occupation of Ethiopia beginning in 1935. The "Shadow King" of the title refers to a man, but this is a woman's story. I felt like the title could also refer to Hirut, the main female character.
After reading the novel I started gathering and creating imagery.
I researched images of the female Ethiopian soldiers from the period.
Then I painted silhouettes of the women which could read as shadows, based on the images from the photographs. I also found images of Ethiopian women which I distressed.
I tried various hand lettering techniques. Steve had originally asked for some grit and some warmth.
I also thought about showing a sense of place, without going toward any cliched African landscapes. I tried ripped paper mountains--symbolizing the country being torn apart.
I looked at the Ethiopian flag colors, and the colors of traditional Ethiopian dress, which are usually bright and vivid trimmings against white.
There are birds in the book, which i thought could represent Hirut's battle for freedom. I also wanted to give her back her father's rifle that is very important to her, and which is stolen from her in the novel.
Steve liked these, but wanted the type to take up more of the shadow in the figure. He also asked me to try different color palettes, and try using only the landscape with type.
The author liked the silhouette, and we continued to try other color palettes, until we landed on the final.
Steve also pushed me to carry the colors across to the back-ad, which really made a nice package.
Final Cover
Editor, artworker and lifelong bibliophile.