Fester Cover

After utilizing the wonderful artwork by Jose Roberto for the cover of Timely Persuasion, I opted to go the do-it-yourself route for the “Fester” cover.

My original idea was to take a photo of a pile of “scrip” tickets, a normal concert ticket, and a paper bracelet all scattered on a lawn alongside a ringing cellphone with the title on the phone’s caller ID display.

Assembling all of the props without turning it into an advertisement for phones or beer or bands or clubs proved difficult.  The “title on the cellphone screen” thing also seemed a little too ambitious for my amateur skills.

With the idea still on bounce in my head, I found myself at the final Friday wine tasting of the summer at Barnsdall Art Park with a handful of drink tickets.  I whipped out my phone and took these photos:

The pile was in line with my original concept, but on a total whim I decided to arrange the tickets in the shape of a letter “F” — and realized I might be on to something.  When I got home I typed out the rest of the title and cycled through fonts until I found one I liked…

…which by total unplanned coincidence ended up being the Rockstar Font Project Wichita font by Chank Diesel based on the handwriting of Mike Doughty.  (Guess I dig what I dig.  And I honestly think it looks even cooler here than it did as Local Boy’s writing in TP…)

And there you have it.  But wait, there’s more!

Recently I’ve been fascinated by The Book Designer Blog.  He’s been doing a monthly eBook cover design contest for a little over a year now.  Proud of my handiwork (hacky-work?), I decided to enter the Fester cover into the September edition for consideration.

I didn’t win (nor did I expect to), but I was flattered to be called out as a favorite by both of the individual design winners in the comments.  Special thanks to Kit Foster & Matt Hinrichs for the vote of confidence, and to Joel Friedlander for the opportunity to participate in (and learn from) such a great contest.