She holds a distant memory
of when a heartbeat matched her own.
A summer secret locked inside,
a child barely known.
A small, now faded picture holds,
a truth in grey and white.
A daughter held for one short day,
one silent tear-torn night.
To give a life, to hold a life
to bear but never see,
the future that the world might hold,
for the child she set free.
Two lives diverged, two stories cleft,
one lost one led away.
But the incense of a child’s warm hair,
still holds her to that day.
The photographer had turned this picture upside down to create a mystery to it. I liked it the right way up, lightened considerably and then cropped it viscously to make the image simpler. It’s a neutral image that will be carried by a good title, rather than dominate it. Superimpose a different title and the image will adapt to that message. Try imagining ‘The Day it Rained Forever’ or ‘Suddenly Last Summer’.
This is a royalty free image and the main typeface is is Vermin Vibes. The original photo file came from unsplash.com.
Book cover design costs vary depending on whether it’s an ebook or paperback but around £80 ($100) is a good guide.
If you need a cover for your new novel or if you’re short of an idea for a plot? Browse these imagined book covers and strap lines for ideas.
One evening I decided to drive up onto the moors, only a mile or two from my house – it looked like a nice sunset was promised.
This is not retouched. The sunset was more spectacular than I’ve ever seen and kept changing every couple of minutes. While I was snapping away, amazed by the natural beauty of the sky and spectacular colours, I noticed that the sheep couldn’t care less about. Had they seen it all before? After all, they are up there almost every night.
This was shot above Parracombe in North Devon, England. A beautiful place to live and bring up children – and not bad for grazing sheep too.
When it works – let it be. Some designers want to stamp their mark on everything that passes through their hands. When you a perfect image match for a title, just use it, don’t try to get ‘clever’. This was so perfect for a post apocalyptic title that it needed no tweaking.
This is a royalty free image and the main typeface is Metal Lord. The original photo file came from unsplash.com.
Book cover design costs vary depending on whether it’s an ebook or paperback but around £80 ($100) is a good guide.
If you need a cover for your new novel or if you’re short of an idea for a plot? Browse these imagined book covers and strap lines for ideas.
This is an essay my father wrote in 1937 about the what he expected the world to be like in the year 2000. I’ve included a transcript for easier reading.
The World in AD 2000 – David James Aiken
Sixty three years hence? think of sixty three years back! would the average man of eighteen seventy four imagined out present world, with its fast traffic, its aeroplanes, the radio – and all that forms the fabric of our modern existence, but what of the future, will the world improve as much again?
The trend of modern life and its inventions is to give more leisure time to the average man, by speading up of work and an eventual shortening of working hours. This leisure time used wisely promises benefits to be reaped in the future, and as man becomes more familiar with the secrets and forces of nature, so will further secrets and forces become revealed to him.
With the advent of the telephone and television into every home, domestic private life will to a great extent disappear, distances will be reduced and it will be commonplace to speak with relations in far off countries and probably to see them on a television screen. Travel to distant parts of the globe will be speeded up by flying hotels travelling at speeds which today are records. Our ocean going liners will be used for heavy freight and as a cheap form of travel as well as pleasure cruising.
A world tour will be a matter of a week or two instead of months.
With this increased facility for travel and increased leisure, education will have progressed, and the risk of friction between nations minimised byt the interchange of ideas and visits. It will not be so easy to mislead people about their neighbours as it was in the past.
Our men of science will also be progressing, and we shall find bloodless surgery holding a very high position in medical treatment. The people may even pay doctors a weekly fee to keep them advised as to their health and not pay when they are ill.
Interplanetary communication may be a possibility, and new realms for explorers to search. News will be in the papers almost as soon as it is an accomplished fact.
In general, life in 2,000 AD will be faster and consequently leisure will be of utmost importance, and the correct use of this leisure. If wisely used it will be a happy world.
How this essay came to light
I never saw this essay until after my father died in 1983 and I was going through his papers. This was a peculiar affair as not only had I lost my father, but he had been a very secretive, reclusive man. He worked for the government, ostensibly in the civil service, but his work was covered by the official secrets act. I never knew what he did and neither did my mother or sister.
As children my sister and I were sometimes entertained by curious pieces of equipment he would bring home, usually only for one evening. Miniature tape recorders, tiny cameras and on one occasion a bottle of mercury (times were very different in the early 1950s.
This essay was written before the second world war and I imagine he would have been disappointed by that part of his predictions being so far off the mark. In most of the essay he got he pretty close to what has happened.
I spent fifteen years drawing cartoon postcards every December (it was always a quiet month for design and illustration work). Nobody sends many postcards now.
Photo montage and overlays can produce results that can only be accomplished by an experienced designer. This book cover illustrates that point. Not only have cutouts and fades combined the images seamlessly, but the colour balances have changed changed to produce a more eye-grabbing palette. Warm colours in dark surroundings are a less a common combination and make the image unusual.
This is a royalty free image and the main typeface is Gill Sans. The two photos are both from pexels.com
Book cover design costs vary depending on whether it’s an ebook or paperback but around £80 ($100) is a good guide.
If you need a cover for your new novel or if you’re short of an idea for a plot? Browse these imagined book covers and strap lines for ideas.
