Vi-An Nguyen on Designing Four Treasures of the Sky
Vi-An Nguyen is a Brooklyn-based Art Director, Illustrator and Book Cover Designer. Here she takes us through her fascinating process for designing the stunning cover for Four Treasures of the Sky.
Big, salty tears dotted my phone screen when I read the manuscript of Four Treasures of the Sky. It’s absolutely heartbreaking, following young Daiyu in the 1880s as she’s kidnapped and forced to find a way to survive three harrowing experiences across China and the American West (at the time of the Chinese Exclusion Act). Daiyu’s journey is unbelievably desperate, sweeping, and moving—to read it is to move through utter anguish and bittersweet triumph alongside her, all while never daring to stop turning the pages because the writing is so poetic yet propulsive.
As a designer, it’s a dream novel, filled with so much rich imagery and symbolism. Chinese calligraphy and art, the Pacific Ocean, fire, western landscapes, and much more give the story a deep well of visual inspiration to draw from. Throughout the novel, visions come to Daiyu of the tragic folk heroine she’s named after, lending a dreamlike quality to the book as well.
And on a personal level, I connected deeply to the novel’s themes of anti-Asian racism that are sadly very timely. I happened to work on the designs in April 2021—not long after the Atlanta shootings.
The brief asked for an elevated, graphic cover that suggests an epic story and indicates the main character in some way. There was also a note from the author, the incredible Jenny Tinghui Zhang, that she wanted to avoid imagery that’s vaguely “Asian” or generally “exotic.” So it was important that any images I created were very specific to the book.
A few of my comps focused on combining the symbol of the fish—in a style inspired by traditional Chinese art—with other elements of the story, like fire.
I also tried drawing the fish as a campfire, to evoke the American west and hint at the dichotomy between fire and water.
I sculpted the fish into a woman’s silhouette, to indicate Daiyu. In the first, the three fish symbolize Daiyu’s three ordeals.
A seagull flying over water, suggesting Daiyu’s journey from China to America. The title is beautiful and evocative, so I emphasized it with strong typography on most of the comps.
I drew Daiyu standing under a tree with four birds—a reference to the title and the four characters you get to know toward the end of the novel.
Three graphic landscapes to indicate the phases of Daiyu’s story.
The chosen cover features a conceptual illustration I created of a fish leaping out of the ocean into the air, to signify Daiyu’s strength and resilience. The trail of ocean water behind the fish forms a female silhouette. The profile could be Daiyu herself or her namesake folk heroine—I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide.
Final cover
I’m incredibly excited for everyone to read this spectacular, powerful book. Many thanks to Keith Hayes at Flatiron Books for the project, and to Jenny and her team for embracing the design.
Editor, artworker and lifelong bibliophile.