Creating a Variant Cover
From ideation to commission to completion.
Ahoy Mythopoeians!
In today’s post I’d like to go over the collaborative process as it pertains to covers by looking at Dia Ja’s variant cover for Glow #7 and the steps it took to get there.
As a self-published creator, I tend to wear many hats - as I understand it, the task of coming up with a cover and art directing it falls under the role of editor. Let me be very clear- I am not a professional artist, but I do work with very talented artists to bring our ideas to life. I love collaborating with other creatives and think it’s probably my best overall skill.
Most of Glow’s covers are inspired by album covers and musical experiences. I’m an avid concert and festival goer, and oftentimes I get my best ideas in the midst of the crowd. That was exactly the case for Glow #1’s variant cover - also done by Dia - inspired by the thrum of the bass and pulsing lights of a massive rave.
I guess it fits pretty well with the title GLOW!
So, the first step when it comes to a variant cover is coming up with an idea or finding an artist with a particular style that we think would work as a variant. We tend to lean towards the former, and in the case of the Glow #7 Variant, I was inspired in particular by psychedelic acid rock covers.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Khruangbin lately - specifically, their collaboration with Leon Bridges on their albums Texas Sun and Texas Moon.
The beautiful artwork on the albums is done by Argentinian artist Paula Doró. In observing the art, I noticed a commonality with one of my favorite roleplaying game settings, The Ultraviolet Grasslands by artist Luka Rejec - specfically, his cover for the softcover first edition of the game.
I also noticed a similar composition from one of musician Tycho’s concert poster:
In looking at all of the references, there are a couple of commonalities:
A similar composition featuring a symmetical, disappearing horizon line
A color scheme that pops with purples and blues
Typography that is smooth and blocky in nature
With that in mind, I put together the following brief for Dia:
Below that, I pulled all the references of the city from Glow #7. I then pulled out the aesthetic references and made a note on those:
From there, it’s a matter of communication! I shoot ove the contract and the brief to Dia, and then follow up every week or so. She asked a few questions, and then eventually this landed in my mailbox:
Along with this:
This is the real fun part - where you see the concept come to life and get to make fun choices based on the thumbnail. We also had a few minor notes about the composition (mainly, we changed Arkadis to Arkadai to reflect the change in the comic). In the end we went with the top middle color scheme which resulted in this final cover:
And that is how a Variant Cover is created! All told, the back and forth was about a month, and maybe another two weeks to reach out about the commission.
Hope that was insightful. Chat again soon, everyone!
Ray