We managed to get a behind the scenes exclusive for you, Locked Library Readers! Toby James, the designer of our edition of Moonstone, has written an amazing post for our blog about his design process of Moonstone.
As a designer, Toby is in charge of making our books look beautiful, and whilst the old saying is ‘you can’t judge a book by it’s cover’, we all know it’s the first thing us special edition collectors see! It’s an added bonus that Toby is an avid reader of fantasy himself (if he had to choose, his favourite book is The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue). As a big fan of the genre, Toby enjoys the challenge of visually bringing new worlds to life on the cover! But enough from The Locked Librarians, now over to Toby himself.
I was lucky enough to get the chance to work on and design the UK hardback for Laura Purcell’s debut YA novel, Moonstone, so when the Locked Library team asked me to create another package of it for their May box, I was really excited.
Early experiments for the Moonstone cover
For the Locked Library edition, the brief was more of the same - to design a ‘luscious gothic fairytale’, and as with the trade edition, the biggest challenge was creating something that felt beautiful and delicate but with a hint of menace!
When developing a cover, my process is very practical. Instead of outsourcing inspiration from places like Pinterest, I like to jump straight into designing; throwing crude elements together to start shaping the direction. This helps me find what works and what doesn’t, and like a sculptor working with clay, the idea emerges as I create it.
Refined set of visuals (later in development)
Having developed lots of visuals for the trade edition, I had the luxury of being able to use another one of my visuals that wasn’t chosen for the UK hardback, as the Locked Library edition cover. It always bittersweet to see designs you love not make it onto the final cover so it was a very rare treat to be able to revive a ‘killed cover’! I personally love how atmospheric this version is, with the swelling mist and crawling vines, not to mention the central moon creating the ‘O’ in the title.
Final Cover
To complete this package, I used different elements and strong visual motifs from the cover (the wolf silhouette, vines, petals etc) and applied them to the various aspects of the jacket. A good example of this is the foiled case in which I used the flowery vines to create a pattern around the edge. Additionally, I fleshed out the illustrations from the cover to create the bespoke endpapers that add a bit more narrative and tension. I really liked the duality between the wolf on one version and the woman on the other, so when I asked if we could use both, I wasn’t aware that this would be a Locked Library first, featuring different endpapers on the front and back! The final touches were the designed internal pages; an author letter and title page, the former featuring a big slash clawed out of the paper!
Full Spec
If I had to choose my favourite part of designing a special edition, It would probably be the spredges! As a designer, it’s a fun challenge to try and echo the feeling of the cover onto such a limited space, and create something that will translate well when printed in that format and look great on people’s shelves!
Huge thanks again to Toby for taking us through the design process that brought us to the gorgeous edition we were able to send out to our Locked Library readers. Make sure to check out Toby’s Instagram and website to follow his creative journey. If you love Toby’s work on our edition of Moonstone, you will be seeing his creative genius on our upcoming July, August and September books!
