bOOK cover Design/someone else's baby

Book cover designs are emerging as an interesting dimesnions in the area of graphic deign, where the concept of cover has evolved beyond the purpose of ornamentation. Multiple discourses on narrative and their socio-political relevance can, in a certain dialogue of argumentation, very well undermine the nature, the accuracy, the integrity, and the meaning of book cover designs, which one may feel, can exceed their function. Having exceeded its historically deemed function, it enters into a space where it can swing to multiple polars of strewn across the axis of interpretations encoded and decoded, and the essence of the text itself as communicated by the author.

The temptation to explore these arguments have been indulged in by many important agents involved in this dimension: the designers, the editors, the authors, and most importantly, the marketing expert (who more often than not have an ultimate say in what this monolithic markets is going to interpret and therefore choose to invest or not). That often is mostly understood as a handicap that the designer experiences in terms of expressing themselves and their creativity. However, that may not be the case if the designer learns how to negotiate with the many stakeholders in the process and expand their flexibility in terms of how to deploy their skills and conceptualisations.

There were times when an exasperated self would gingerly argue with the head designer about this inability to negotiate, which once met with the metaphor of dressing up someone else's child. You have the agency to dress them up, but it has to be acceptable to the parent.

A similar space of problems was experienced while working on a book cover for Bloomsbury India. The text was called 100 Great Indian Poems, by Abhay K.

It was an edited anthology of poems gathered across history and geography of the Indian subcontinent. It was quite evident that the book was not about inclusivity which parenthetically suggests that the subjects in question are not inherently included in the symbolised space, but about microcosmic harmony which is more to indicate the totality and the diversity of a shared history and geography, to further suggest that the subjects in question are an intergral component of this symbolised space. Discussions with the editor allowed me to fine tune and make more inclusive my interpretation of this anthology. The parent was curious to see a few of what was going to cover their child.

But it also led to an interesting question: what tradition of art and aesthetics or the lack of it could have expressed it and could have done justice to the idea of the book?

Always read the text, said an answer by Tomer Hanuka in his now-removed FAQ. The poems were way too diverse in their contexts, and the symbolised space had to be as adequate a representation. Following were the references suggested which have been, in contemporary times, used to indicate concepts of syncretism. These are the references shared with editor in concern.

Kindly note that except Fig 2 in last slide, none of the images belong to me, and neither their ownership is sought. They were shared primarily for the moodboard.

One option was shared for each of these styles.

The last option was chosen for the diverse application, adaptation, and association of miniature art across the Indian continent.

The illustration was in a circular space, the circular element gleaned out of the usage of the circular space in pan-Indian traditions to refer to totality in astrology and whatever one may call "cartography". Very simple elements from the concept of a garden was picked up for the multiple cultural associations that garden has had across pan-Indian cultures. Peacocks and rabbits were explicit references from Rajasthani miniature painting and its subject. The rendering was kept contemporary to dissociate from any particular tradition of miniature painting, however.

It was difficult to convince the parent that this illustration had to be redone, so it was produced the way one sees it in the very first image. This negotiation interestingly came with a firm conviction from my end about the concept, and somewhere, in this difficult terrain of agreement/disagreement, I as a designer, and the editor and the author were able to negotiate successfully, leading to a win-win situation.