Book Jacket Designs by Leo Nickolls
Judge a Book by Its Cover - Featuring Designs by Leo Nickolls
Bio:
I'm a book cover designer and illustrator based in Norwich UK since late 2007, designing books of most genres but lately illustrating more of the children's/Young Adult illustrated type!
Judge a Book by Its Cover - Featuring Designs by Leo Nickolls
Inspiration for All The Ever Afters by Danielle Teller:
The story was described to me as a modern modern version of Grimm's fairy tale in the vein of Sarah Perry's The Essex Serpent (designed by Peter Dyer), and I was given some examples of medieval tapestry, so I took that as a cue. I tried finding stock images of tapestry and photoshopping them together to make my own design, but I couldn't get it to work convincingly (not least incorporating elements of Cinderella into it, glass slipper, castle etc), so I decided to illustrate it myself. After numerous sketches I found a layout I was pleased with and went about drawing/painting it using digital brushes, a mixture of watercolour and oil. My ambition was for it to look like a medieval tapestry in the style of Disney's 1950 Cinderella, because I love it's soft-focus blue-ish aesthetic (and the illustration style in general), and I thought it would be a nice contrast to the story being told from the stepmother's perspective, whilst giving it some familiarity to its audience with the original tale. How much of the Disney inspiration comes through in the final... I'm not so sure. Usually book cover projects require taking inspiration from a number of sources and mixing them together (without copying them!) but for me, it always ends up not looking like any of them, either because I'm not a good enough illustrator compared to said inspiration, or it just evolves the more time I spend with it! But I was quite pleased with how this one turned out nonetheless (even though now I look at it I can't help but think that the evil stepmother looks a bit like Belinda Carlisle haha).
Judge a Book by Its Cover - Featuring Designs by Leo Nickolls
Other book jackets designed by Leo Nickolls:
Judge a Book by Its Cover - Featuring Designs by Leo Nickolls
Judge a Book by Its Cover - Featuring Designs by Leo Nickolls
Judge a Book by Its Cover - Featuring Designs by Leo Nickolls
Judge a Book by Its Cover - Featuring Designs by Leo Nickolls
Judge a Book by Its Cover - Featuring Designs by Leo Nickolls
I've only ever done book covers, except for one piece I made for my son's little brother to raise funds for his treatment at the time which was supposed to be a cross between Adventure Time (because he loved it and the main character was called Finn like him) and Star Wars (again because he loved it, and loved John Boyega's Finn!).
Judge a Book by Its Cover - Featuring Designs by Leo Nickolls
