I was psyched when Light Grey Art Lab announced the call for artists for their Station Zero show. They had been working on amassing a collection of old sci-fi books from the 50s through the 70s and were looking for artists to reinterpret the covers.
I definitely wouldn't call myself a sci-fi buff. More a sci-fi admirer. When I opened up the package containing my book from Light Grey, I was excited to find the beauty pictured on the top left. Such a great cover already!
When I thought about what I like in great cover design, more often than not it is pretty clear, graphic and slightly quirky design. I liked the fun line of shapes under Leiber's name on the original cover and thought that creating vignettes on my cover using similar shapes could be a fun homage to the original design.
This cover turned into one of those cases where I work on it and keep adding things only to undo everything because it starts looking too cluttered. The book is actually comprised of four short stories. I thought four of the shaped vignettes would be an interesting concept to work with, one alluding to each of the stories. In the end, I simplified it down to two. One with the radar to hint at the government/technological aspects involved in the stories and one to hint at the barren landscape that permeates the book.
