Under a Collapsing Sky is an intricate, dystopian futuristic piece of political science fiction told from five different perspectives.
The text this cover represents is quite complex, but the brief I got for it was specific and direct. I was able to turn this around within a tight deadline and the result is the brief to the letter: a phoenix in the style of an emblem in the upper righthand corner with a blue and gold colour scheme.
The alternate cover is a more thematic approach that I experimented with to see what else might be gleaned from such a rich text. Sticking with the emblematic aesthetic, I thought the phoenix could have been used in a slightly different way. In the novel, "phoenix tears" is a drug with the power to transform people into animals. It also has sinister consequences. I felt that having the shadow of a man visible in the negative space between the phoenix's feathers depicted both connotations of this element of the story and created a much more interpretive design overall.
In the unpublished version of the cover, I used the text to tell a thematic story. I wanted the words to mimic the sense of "collapsing," as stated in the title. That's why I have them cascading downward in various sizes. The modern serif, Playfair Display, was chosen to match the emblem style of the image, and give the overall design a refined, even professional feel.
Blue and gold were the colours requested in the brief and I think the scheme works between both designs. There was a slight risk, especially with the emblem style, of creating something that looked like informative literature for a corporate bank. I tried to offset this by using a deep navy, which also speaks to the dark tone of the writing.