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.
Radoslav Donev
Education: Bachelor, Visual Arts, New Bulgarian University
Professional experience: I have been working in one of the largest Bulgarian publishing houses for more than 13 years, I have made more than 1000 covers behind me. I have made covers for books by Louise Penny, Stefan Tsanev, Radostina Angelova, Simon Beckett, John Verdon, Michel Gable, Glenn Beck, P. S. Cust, Fiona Mackintosh, Alisa Palombo, Sylvia Day, Noah Hawley and many others.
In addition, in recent years I have been combining my favorite hobbies – mountaineering and photography, in color editions with photo prints; and together with my wife, who is an artist, we create a series of original educational publications for children - atlases, maps and coloring books, the total circulation of which already exceeds 70,000 copies.
Exhibitions/projects/awards:
My cover was in the TOP 40 of the best Bulgarian covers presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2014. The cover was made for Simon Beckett's novel - "Blood Scars", published by "Softpress". Otherwise, every Bulgarian home is my exhibition hall, considering that there is hardly a family that does not have a book with a cover made by me.
What does it actually mean to make covers? Tell us about your process: First, I have a casual conversation with the author (or editor) about the book and its message. Then we research the competition in the genre together and I make him focus on covers he likes, that way I understand what his taste is and what to consider. Then we come up with 5 keywords that, in my opinion and the author's, best reflect the plot of the book, and through them I build the visual metaphors. I strive to make covers that have an understandable message. The elements should direct attention to the content of the book, not to the way the cover is illustrated. The effects should not be an end in themselves, but it is good to have them if they help to understand the plot. Overly complex and visually loaded covers do not help to understand the idea of the book. Sometimes the wrong choice of format also has a negative impact, for example, it is not good to publish a poetry collection in the format of a magazine or a thriller in the format of a mini-dictionary. My advice to authors is to keep the title short – one or two words, to be evocative and easy to remember.
If we have specified all the necessary details with the author, my work takes no more than 2 to 5 days. (And/or nights – this is a process that does not fit into working hours.)
Is the cover an illustration? “Illustration” comes from the Latin word for light – it is something that illuminates, shows, explains. The book cover does exactly that – it clarifies ideas, tells stories, recreates the atmosphere and emotions in the story. In a sense, the goals here are even higher – why does it often have to do it quickly, attract at a glance and lead to a sale.
What is the cover of which work do you dream of creating? I do not have such dreams, for me every new and unknown book for which I have to make a cover is a challenge. My work as a graphic designer is a dream come true in itself!
What do people most often NOT know about a book cover or the process of creating it? Making a cover is a rather complex process. I learned to be patient, to believe that if a project doesn't work the first time, it will definitely work the third or fourth time, as long as you continue to believe in what you're doing! From my long-term collaboration with many publishers and authors, I have acquired that rare quality of achieving a balance between the client's cover ideas and my own ideas, yet I have already created more than 1000 book covers from a variety of genres.
Favorite examples that made you reach for a book because of the cover? A recent example is the new editions of Viktor Paskov's books, which I bought, even though I have the old editions in my library.
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