Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich on Tell the Wolves I'm Home

Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich is a designer based in New York City. His portfolio of work includes the cover of Carol Rifka Brunt's Tell the Wolves I'm Home, published by Penguin Random House. Here is his creative rationale for the design in his own words.

Tell the Wolves I’m Home is a blend of young girl’s coming of age / fish out of water story set in 1987. The narrator grows up in a comfortable New Jersey suburb, among comformity and narrow-mindness, and feels that the only person who understands her, is her uncle, a painter who lives in NYC. The uncle dies of a mysterious disease and shortly after a stranger gives her an ornate teapot with a dancing bear which she recognizes as belonging to her dead uncle. She feels alone, sad and frightened. 

The silhouette of the fancy teapot becomes the structure to wrap the type around. It is also a metaphor for a life outside her cookie cutter reality and a the teapot’s black silhouette is a “hole”, representing the loss of her beloved uncle. Instead of the dancing bear, I added a girl as the knob on top of the teapot, reminding me of Alice in Wonderland at the Mad Hatter's tea party; another girl in another coming of age / fish out of water story. 

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