The brief

Design book covers for three of HG Wells’ books.  The designs should be contemporary and work as a set to establish the books as timeless fiction.  The books will be published in a paperback format and need to include the title, author’s name, publisher’s name and trademark.  

Analysing the brief

I have found it helpful to make a spider diagram of the brief to refer to while working on the project.  This ensures that I don’t miss anything and stay on track according to the brief.  It also helps me to organise my thoughts and set out a methodology of steps to follow to get the foundation of my planning right.

First, I had to identify the gaps in my knowledge, and before reaching out to my search engine, I asked the people around me to get an idea of my community’s knowledge about the author.  I have noted that HG Wells is well known amongst educated people who most likely went to university or those who love to read.  Not everyone enjoys his work.  This tells me he is controversial, but his work is talked about and captures the reader’s attention.  

This is the primary research that will help me, and I will need to find resources to further my research.

Who was HG Wells?

Herbert George Wells (1866 – 1946) was born in Bromley, England.  Wells came from a working-class background.  He is well known for his science-fiction works, including The Time Machine and War of the Worlds. (Biography.com Editors, 2020)

“In 1920, Wells published The Outline of History, perhaps his best selling work during his lifetime. This three-volume tome began with prehistory and followed the world’s events up through World War I. Wells believed there would be another major war to follow and included his ideas for the future.” (Biography.com Editors, 2020)

“A futurist, he wrote a number of utopian works and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television and something resembling the World Wide Web. His science fiction imagined time travel, alien invasion, invisibility, and biological engineering.” (Wikipedia, 2022)

Deciding on a three-book set

I decided to explore the three-volume tome further as a possibility for a three-cover design as stipulated in the brief.  This led me to the order in which Wells wrote his books and sparked an idea of illustrating his first three books as a set.  I preferred this idea as his earlier books were what some have called scientific romances and would be interesting to illustrate.  Salvador Dali’s surrealism work as inspiration came to mind as I read through pieces of the Time Machine, The Wonderful Visit and The Island of Dr Moreau.

Narrative overview

The obvious next step will be to research the previously illustrated book covers, but I will leave that to later to see my ideas first without being influenced by other illustrators.  I am doing this not to hinder my creative thoughts for possible new ideas.

I read through the summary and additional pieces of each of his first three books to get a narrative overview.  I reread it, highlighting keywords like dates, characters, places and descriptions of physical things.

I brainstormed the overall feel and emotion in the books to decide the atmosphere I wanted to create and also considered to whom this book would be marketed.  Who will the audience be?  I would like to keep the illustration abstract and leave the characters’ faces open to the reader’s interpretation.  One of the joys of reading is to create these characters in your mind according to your own interpretation.  So many times I have been disappointed seeing a movie after reading a book just because the characters were not portrayed as I imagined. 

The Time Machine (1895)

The story follows a Victorian scientist who invented a time machine that enables him to travel through time.  He visits the future arriving in the year 802 701 in what had once been London.  There he finds the future race because the human species has evolved.

Two of the places described in The Time Machine are the paradisical world of small humanoid creatures called Eloi and wells that dot the landscape with ape-like creatures living belowground called the Morlocks.

I collected visual references by walking outside and collecting photographs of interesting shadows of “paradisical” plants that could give ideas for thumbnail drawings.  I also collected visual references online of pictures of a white ape, London, underwater cities and tropical plants and the work of Salvador Dali.  I include the pictures I used in my visual reference board.

Visual research for The Time Machine

1. The oil stains in picture 1 are interesting shapes that could tie in with the mood of this book.  The mood seems unsettling at times, and the black shapes of the oil with the rugged edges can work well to illustrate the underground cavities where the Morlocks live.
2. I collected images of white apes in pictures 2 and 4 to get an idea of the outline of a gorilla.  I want to leave the face and other details of the Morlock to the reader’s imagination. 
3. I collected leaves from my garden in picture 3.  I like the speckles on these leaves, which look almost toxic, like a plant that will fit into a paradisical world.  I want to keep the illustration simple as you would in poster design, so I don’t know if there will be a place for such details.
4. Picture 5 is a visual reference to an old-time well.  The Morlocks live in a landscape dotted with wells, but I am already thinking about an illustration that rather illustrates the crevices instead of the wells. 
5. I really liked the shadow of pictures 6 and 7 as a possibility of the crevices for the Morlocks and picture 8 as another paradisical plant.

The Wonderful Visit (1895)

This fascinating story took place in 1895 in Southern England.  The main character is the angel mistaken for a bird because of his dazzling polychromatic plumage, for he is “neither the Angel of religious feeling nor the Angel of popular belief, “but rather “the Angel of Italian art.”  The book describes the angel after he is hunted and shot in the wing by an amateur ornithologist.

“It was no bird at all, but a youth with an extremely beautiful face, clad in a robe of saffron and with iridescent wings, across whose pinions great waves of colour, flushes of purple and crimson, gold green and intense blue, pursued one another as he writhed in his agony.  Never had the Vicar seen such gorgeous floods of colour, not stained glass windows, not the wings of butterflies, not even the glories of crystals seen between prisms, no colour on earth could compare with them. (Wells, 2017)

I collected visual references of feathers and different colour combinations.  The photo of the bird is an example of bright feathers.  I also explored the different colours of saffron and collected pictures of Southern England.  

The Island of Dr Moreau (1896)

This story is about an island belonging to Dr Moreau, formerly an eminent physiologist in London whose gruesome experiments in vivisection had been publicly exposed and who fled England as a result of his exposure.  Moreau continued his work on his island by vivisecting humans and creating half-human/half-animal creatures.

I collected sea plants and objects that could convey the story.  At the time I had no idea how I would visually portray this subject matter, but I kept walking around and collecting objects and letting my imagination flow.  I also collected pictures of animals.

A set of three books

The three illustrations should be cohesive as a set and portray more or less the same mood and feel even though they are very different stories.  I had to find an overall feel and emotion for all three books.

I drew inspiration from the general mood and feel of Salvador Dali’s landscapes.  This is the emotion and atmosphere I could feel when reading all three HG Wells’ books.

The colour and smooth technique are two elements I would like to use for the book covers.  It is dramatic and serious.  The smooth rendering gives the painting a realistic feel, although the subject matter is not realistic.  I want to achieve the same effect in all three book covers.

Mood boards

I have created collective mood boards for all three covers.  I have done it in this manner to compare the elements that will work separately on each book and together as a set.

Mood board 1 description

1. Experimenting with mark making and textures
2. Using coloured paper as a background with cottonwool.
3. Exploring collage and cut-outs.
4. Sketching ideas for a landscape for the Morlocks.
5. Exploring different textures for the Morlock landscape.  This cardboard inspired the landscape for The Time Machine.
6. Combining collage, drawing and textures for landscape ideas.
7. Experimenting with plant shadows, colours and exploring a colour palette. 
8. Exploring the idea of thorns.
9. Drawing the shadows of the plants I photographed in figure 3 and exploring layering with paper.  I am considering this shape for the angel’s wings in The Wonderful Visit.

Mood board 2 description

1. This mood board mainly consists of drawings.  I wanted to manipulate the visual references I have collected into shapes and elements that will work for the illustrations.  Sketch 1 was sketched from the sea plants in figure 7 for The Island of Dr Moreau.
2. Sketch 2 was derived from the animal references in figure 7. I am considering combining it with the sea plants to achieve a surrealistic island image for The Island of Dr Moreau.
3. Sketch 3 is a violin for The Wonderful Visit.  I am exploring different viewpoints to incorporate a part of the shape into the illustration.
4. Sketch 4 is a shape that I derived from the plant shadows in figure 3 for the landscape in The Time Machine.
5. Sketch 5 is a sketch from the visual reference collected in figure 3.  I like the stripes and would like to incorporate them as a pattern into one of the illustrations. 
6. Sketch 6 is a sketch from outside.  It captured my attention because it looks like entangled veins and could be a possibility for the angel’s body in The Wonderful Visit.
7. Sketch 7 is also a sketch from outside and could possibly be used to get that paradisical feel for The Time Machine.
8. Sketch 8 is more violin ideas.
9. Sketch 9 is more violin ideas for The Wonderful Visit.
10. A Sketch of a feather to get the feel of combining the shadow sketch and the feather sketch for the angel’s wings.

Thumbnail sketches

Description of thumbnail sketches

Sketch 1: My first attempt to create the Morlock’s underground world and also incorporate the paradisical effect with the plants that grow over the title.

Sketch 2: I tried a different composition that is more of a landscape.  Here I included the cardboard texture from my moodboard in the form of stripes.

Sketch 3: I tried the leaf shadow as a landscape and placed one of the Morlocks inside to create an underground world.  So far, I like the composition and layout the most, but it needs more work.

Sketch 4: I tried the leave shadows as the angel wings.

Sketch 5: I placed the angel in a Southern England landscape, but I still need to work on the composition.

Sketch 6: I tried the shape of the violin head and the motion of the feathers twirling around the head.

Sketch 7:  Here, I tried the same concept but a different composition.

Sketch 8: Another composition of the violin head and the swirl of feathers.  I think this is a nice idea, but I will continue exploring the ideas for The Wonderful Visit.

Sketch 9: Another idea of the angel and using the wings in a different composition.  This time I am using the plants as his body.  I like this idea and just need to get the composition right.

Sketch 10:  An idea for The Island of Dr Moreau.  I had this idea from the start and have now illustrated it on paper. I am combining the sea plants with the animals to illustrate the book’s mood—animals in an unnatural state. 

Sketch 11: I used different shapes to explore my previous idea of The Time Machine.

Sketch 12: In this sketch I wanted to see what it looks like when the cloud is smaller.  I think the cloud looks too solid for the look I want to achieve, but I still like the idea.

Sketch 13: Another idea for The Island of Dr Moreau.  I tried the texture of the flat sea sponge in figure 7.  I feel this landscape needs more interesting lines and angles.

Sketch 14: I changed the shape of the underground and created more of a landscape.  Although, I don’t want it to look like a beach.  I am trying to simplify the illustration.

Sketch 15: I am trying the beach layout of the previous sketch for the Dr Moreau illustration.

Sketch 16: Trying a different composition.

Sketch 17: Changing the composition and placement of elements.

Sketch 18: An alternative sketch to Sketch 14 to change the beach scene to a dull underground landscape to illustrate the Morlocks and their savage behaviour. The paradisical scene is in the background with the lovely colours of the sky.  I like this sketch the most and will use it for the final illustration.

Sketch 19: Still experimenting with The Dr Moreau illustration by taking elements away behind the animal bush.

Sketch 20:  Here I have decided to simplify the scene even more and think it was successful.  I changed the green to a sharp “uncomfortable” green to contrast with the background that is far away and peaceful.  This symbolises that the world out there does not know what is happening on this island.  I like this sketch the most and will use it for the final illustration.

Sketch 21: Trying a pink sky above the paradise and I still don’t like the sea for this scene.  I still prefer Sketch 18, but I will probably flip it horizontally when incorporating the text.

Sketch 22: I incorporated the Southern England background and a subtle violin shape between the angel’s body and one wing.  Now I need to work on the composition and placement of elements.

Sketch 23: Considering the other option again, but I think it might be too abstract.

Sketch 24: I wanted to see what happens when I place the angel upside down, but I do not think it works.

Sketch 25:  I like this composition the most and will use it for the final sketch.

Colour study and final drafts

I finalised my illustration elements and decided on a typeface.  I have chosen Lust from the Adobe typeface because it is bold and suitable for a display typeface with different line weights.  It also has finer line weights to convey the sensitive romance in the books.  It is a modern typeface with a traditional flair.  I first established my greyscale and then decided on the tones and saturation of the colours.  I have chosen the colours to convey both the dramatic and romantic tones in the books.  I had to research exactly what the angel looks like to get the colours right.  The angel was shot in his right wing, which is why the right wing has no colour.  Salvador Dali influenced the colour palette, which suits this theme well.  The earthy tones are contrasted with pastels and whites.  I used diagonal lines to communicate the book’s tension, drama and eccentric style.  These lines are slightly balanced out by elements in the opposite diagonal.

This is a digital draft of the final illustration, which I will paint in gouache.  I decided on gouache as a medium to achieve the same smooth paint effect Salvador Dali’s paintings.  

Painting the illustrations

Figure 16

1. Cold pressed watercolour paper stretched the day before starting my paintings.  
2. The following day I transferred the image onto the paper with graphite paper.
3. After I masked out the foreground, I painted the dark clouds and green as underpainting.
4. I added dry brushing for extra detail and colour to the clouds.
5. Finished the painting in steps 5, 6, 7 and 8.  I used the same method for the other paintings.

I edited the illustrations using a grid and created a book cover and spine.  I hand traced the Lust typeface.  I decided to do this because it has given the text a handmade feel that blends nicely with the cover design.

Overall, I am pleased with the end product and have achieved what I planned.  I would like to develop my planning skills when it comes to book design.  I found myself going back and forth to get the sizing correct.  Next time I will be more aware of the grid to keep all elements consistent while editing.  The books communicate my intentions.  It is precisely what I planned, and I am pleased with the illustrations.  I managed to get wonderful ideas by cropping my moodboard, like the angel’s wings and the crevices for the Morlocks.  Salvador Dali’s landscape inspired me to use different planes and lines for my landscapes. 

Works Cited

Biography.com Editors. (2020, June 23). H.G. Wells Biography. Retrieved from The Biography.com : https://www.biography.com/writer/hg-wells

Wikipedia. (2022, August 20). H.G. Wells Wikipedia. Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells

Wells, H. (2017). The Wonderful Visist (Parts Edition). East Sussex, England: Delphi Classics.