The Funeral Girl book cover process
Author Don Hough was re-releasing his collection of short stories, in anticipation of a forthcoming novel, and he asked me to envision a new cover for the book.
The book is a warm-hearted collection of stories in which people long for connection in a world that has so many ways of keeping us apart. The visual theme that emerged for me was the idea of warmth, which I kept through the various design iterations.
The title story, The Funeral Girl, was the first inspiration for the cover. It focuses on a mysterious video of a young woman reading a series of explicit phrases at a funeral, which of course goes viral and takes on a life of its own, being replicated, memed and parodied, all without knowing the surprising full context of the video.
My first few design concepts attempted to capture the essential nature of the girl herself, by obscuring her features and keeping an air of mystery. The author and I both agreed that this wasn’t quite capturing her, and that the essential idea of the story was that she was so beguiling that any attempt to capture her visually was probably futile.
We agreed to set aside the initial concept and focus more on the abstract concept and theme that binds these stories together, the yearning for connection in a modern world that makes it increasingly difficult. We envisioned phones as tools for connection, but also functioning as prisons that truly keep us apart.
I also liked the contrast between modern imagery and a more classic, rustic font.
The visual motif of warmth carried over from the first designs. I felt it was important to maintain that, lest it come across as too “goth.”
We actually settled on the back cover first. My idea was to illustrate a very specific memelike photo from one of the stories. In it, a high school girl takes the same photo from her bedroom window every day at the same time and discovers that the elements always repeat themselves - the mail truck, a dog on a leash, a stranger walking down the street. It’s a picture of suburban mundanity that really appealed to me.
If you’re interested in this book, you can find it here.