During December last year, Catherine put me in contact with her father, Brian; who is in need of a book cover design for his Anglo Saxon fiction novel; 'The Whispering Bell'. After getting into contact with Brian, and accepting the project, we had a run-down of ideas for designs/images to be included on the front cover. Brian seemed very fond on the idea of including swans, because of their ancient associations with fidelity - because the central protagonist characters of the Whispering Bell are a pair of lovers, who would endure all sorts of hardship. Brian was very flexible with any ideas I could contribute, but I found it difficult to sway from the idea of the swans because it seemed a perfect image to represent timeless love. My other ideas were going to be too hard to achieve as they would have needed Anglo-Saxon imagery and inventory which I could not get access to. I went to Orchardleigh in search of some swans and managed to get plenty of good shots on my SLR. I sent the best images to Brian and he looked at each of them and picked out #079, saying it was his favourite:
He felt that the overhanging trees framed the shot nicely and he liked the glassy, clean coldness of the shot, it spoke eloquently of the struggle and harshness of the protagonists’ lives but also of the simplicity and purity of their love. Since Brian was happy to continue, I got to work on the cover and resulted in a layout, Brian would then suggest improvements and I would continue to correct until he was happy. I finished the cover on the 16th of February and sent Brian the formal sign-off documents. He was very pleased with the results:
I was a "great pleasure to work with" and he appreciated my "helpful and positive attitude" to the project. He even said that he would mention me to anyone he knew who needed design work at every chance he got which was also good to hear!
