Well the photo shoot was done. I enlisted an age-appropriate BFF (daughter-speak) to model and then photoshopped away. Why am I doing my own cover? Apart from being quite the control freak (I can't believe I am admitting this) I started out studying Visual Communication, learnt basic lay-out work, colour-coding, photography, film, drawing and even some marketing before dropping out and gliding towards words, which I'd found impossible to betray. I don't know how many people suffer the same divide - words versus image. (Try adding music to that and you may understand my fix!) In the end I dropped image for a long while and sunk into words - history at university, years of reading, story-writing, the doomed first novel. Contented yes, but always feeling the seduction of good design, good photography.
Then falling in love with a photographer in the flesh made me change course so radically it puzzles me to be sitting where I am. For the length of our partnership I abandoned writing (though gained much material) and worked on image - a small design agency in Ghana, photography exhibitions (sadly I was the woman behind the man) and all the publicity material for our art gallery which continues to slip out of my books.
So I offered - well I begged - to do my cover design myself. I think there are elements of the story I know so well that come together, that invite the viewer with a few strong codes, or I truly hope so. I have been studying ladylit covers for so long now I am saturated and decided to veer far away from pastels, curly writing, heels and flutes of champagne. Instead I think I have made something that is more intriguing, and throws out a cheeky lure.
Would you like some eye candy so early in the day?
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