Overview
Brian Harmon, author of horror and suspense, was ready to complete his much anticipated trilogy, The Hands of the Architects. To kick off the story’s completion, he wanted to re-release the first installment of the series with a new cover. We worked with Brian through his writing process to design covers for his new trilogy that would pull in new readers while also catering to his engaged fan base. Brian teased his eager fans with subtle hints on social media to build up each release throughout 2018.
Services
- Workshop
- Branding
- Print Design
- Digital Design
the goal
creating new hype
Knowing how eager his fans were to learn the fate of their favorite characters, Brian felt the pressure to quickly create a cover that would not only spark interest for new readers, but also begin to build a brand for the series. By looking at the before and after cover comparison, you can see we were able to bring his characters to life, good and evil. This established a theme for the series with an overall eery and mysterious tone.
the process
workshop, photography
After a workshop with Brian and his wife Guinevere, pages of notes, and multiple packs of post-its, we curated a gallery of 80 different book covers in order to collect feedback. Candorem helped Brian build a mood board from these options, collecting color schemes, illustrations, photos and typography notes.
From there, we read the thick rough draft of the book, making notes along the way. This allowed us to pull in inspiration to photograph potential scenery for the book cover.
putting things in motion
experimenting with animation
Sometimes projects allow us to test out new software or creative techniques. When Brian asked for images to post on social media to promote his books, we experimented with creating simple animations and GIFs.
the solution
a trilogy
The successful re-release of the first book signaled the design process to begin for the release of book two which hit shelves in June 2018. With this cover, we were able to include more of our own original photography and illustration of the characters, hidden in the shadows of the scenery.
For the final installment of the series, Brian delivered the 700+ pages of the last book the largest yet, to our desks. This book’s cover design had a stark contrast of color compared to the first two. As readers go through the series, the main characters are pictured on the cover closer and closer to the reader. On book three’s cover, we are now fully immersed in their perspective, as the ready took the journey alongside the girls through their journey.
The final book was released in December 2018 digitally, and paperback following soon after.
