July… it’s time for the sea, relaxation and reading on the beach, so this month we will dedicate it to covers and their creators.
Fidelia Koseva
Education: Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, NBU
Professional experience: I have been working as a graphic designer for six years, and as a freelance cover artist for four. Most of my professional experience is in the field of book publishing
Exhibitions/projects/awards: As a student, my posters participated in exhibitions organized by NBU, but since then it’s all been books 🙂
What does it actually mean to make covers? Tell us about your process. For me, it means, above all, a lot of love for reading, for books. Ever since I was little, I wanted to deal with books, not with drawing, not with design – with books. This simultaneous discovery and detachment from the world, the magic of the artfully intertwined story, the feeling of a new beginning every time you open a new book – these are infinitely valuable things for me, which is why my process begins with reading. Reading and insight. If with a little more luck, I have a deadline that allows it, a few days of thinking and options. Then cleaning and finalizing, smoothing and refining the options. I never manage to settle on just one design, I send several options, because every story can be viewed from many angles, can be understood in different ways, provokes you in different directions. Then, with the publisher or the author, we settle on one, I touch it up a little more, if necessary, after it has already “aged” for a few days and we are ready.
Is the cover an illustration? The cover is an illustration that simultaneously grabs and holds attention and hints at the story in the book. It must be aesthetically pleasing, but also “sell”, stand out, enchant, amaze.
Cover, what work do you dream of creating? Here I still have one or two unfulfilled teenage dreams. Fantasy and science fiction have always fascinated me, and making a cover for Tolkien, Robert Jordan or Brandon Sanderson remains a dream for me. These stories are so intricate, multi-layered, full of meaning and symbolism that synthesizing all of this and shaping it into a cover would be a great and, above all, extremely interesting challenge.
What do people most often NOT know about a book cover or the process of creating it? I guess they don’t know that half of our work is diplomacy :). A complex process of reasoning, teamwork, corrections and nudges of the design here and there, because the cover is an illustration, but the book is also a product that needs to be sold. When at the end of this process everyone is satisfied with the result – then I am truly happy, because both the author is satisfied with the visualization of his text, and I with the final project, and the book has had the opportunity to reach as many people as possible.
Favorite examples that made you reach for a book because of the cover? There are many examples, I am constantly amazed by foreign publications that experiment with printing techniques and materials, by super conceptual and minimalist projects that stand out. The last book that I bought because of the clean and conceptual cover that intrigued me was Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. The book is gorgeous.
Website: https://fkosseva.carbonmade.com/
Add comment