When we designed the covers for the Divided Man series, we worked on the three of them simultaneously. It was a good way to produce a unified result, with the content, colors, layout, and typography working together so the books really looked like a set.

We liked how that went, so we’re following the same methodology for the Science Novels. For books one and three, the main images were downloaded and then manipulated in Photoshop, much as with the earlier cover designs. But we just couldn’t find a stock image anywhere that really worked for book two.

So, we took our own, snapping extreme closeups of an old amplifier from our music room. The initial candidate gave us very encouraging results, but we felt dissatisfied that there wasn’t any ice in the image (probably because we took the pic on our dining table). Pervasive cold is an important thematic element in the story that should be reflected on the cover, plus it would help connect the imagery for the other two books. Kent tinkered with adding ice and snow textures sampled from many of the same images that we’d already auditioned and rejected, but it wasn’t coming together. The effects he was getting didn’t match what Jen saw in her mind’s eye.

A confluence of propitious events followed. Jen tracked down a source for salvaged electronics, where she purchased another techie gizmo for us to photograph. This also prompted us to scavenge our to-recycle pile. That turned out to be a been-recycled pile, and therefore it didn’t exist. Rats. But, Jen’s mom was looking to clear out some old stereo equipment that no one had used in years, so we grabbed it.

And then, best of all, it snowed. We took all our delightfully obsolete treasures out on the deck and let nature heap them with eleven inches of snow. We also spritzed them with a squirt bottle to help things along. The neighbors, if they noticed, didn’t say anything.

The final cover image will be an amalgam created from portions of several of the pictures Jen took. It’s not done yet, but already it looks awesome.