{"id":4624,"date":"2022-02-09T15:56:36","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T05:26:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=4624"},"modified":"2022-02-09T16:51:34","modified_gmt":"2022-02-09T06:21:34","slug":"behind-cover-teeth-slow-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2022\/02\/behind-cover-teeth-slow-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"BEHIND THE COVER: The Teeth of a Slow Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Behind<\/h1>\n

Andrew Roff’s debut short-story collection, The Teeth of a Slow Machine<\/em>, is a daring, irreverent exploration of the conundrums of contemporary life, and what it means to be a human. In this guest post, Andrew takes us through the\u00a0design process for the cover of his collection.<\/h1>\n

Many thanks to the covers’ designer, Duncan Blachford of Typography Studio<\/a>, who has generously allowed us to reproduce some of his early cover concepts. Read on to see the stories behind the concepts, and to see the winning design.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Like many aspiring writers, I couldn\u2019t help daydreaming about the cover of my first book. Would it be bright? Ominous? Scandalous? Futuristic and fantastical, featuring a rocket ship or a robot like the golden-age sci-fi novels I grew up on? Or something more abstract? Something classy<\/em>?<\/h1>\n

When I learned that Wakefield Press had offered to publish my first short story collection, I danced around the kitchen; released a cage full of doves; kissed a baby. Then came more writing, and editing, and re-writes, and proof-reading. And it was only towards the end of that process that work on a cover began.<\/p>\n

\n

I had been warned by other writers: don\u2019t expect to have much input.<\/em> The publisher invests in the book, and so the publisher makes the final call on which cover they believe will best drive sales. Fair enough! Still, I fretted. I\u2019d laboured for years on these stories. What if, when they took physical form, I couldn\u2019t stand how they\u2019d been dressed up?<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I needn\u2019t have worried. My editor at Wakefield, Jo Case (who has recently moved on to a role as Deputy Editor of the new Books & Ideas section at The Conversation<\/em>) wanted my book to succeed, too, and more importantly, for it to be an object we could both be proud of. In emails, I tried not to nag. Any thoughts yet about the cover? <\/em>Or: How is the cover coming along?<\/em> Or, just in my own head: Where is the @#$%ing cover already?<\/em><\/p>\n

Jo asked me for some general thoughts on what kind of cover I might like. I think she was expecting a couple of sentences. Naturally I replied with an essay, citing a host of other book covers that I admired, including these:<\/p>\n

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The gist of the essay was, \u2018I would like the cover to reflect the kind of book this will be: experimental, quirky, fresh from a new writer, conceptual. Not: stuffy, grounded, conservative, safe.<\/em>\u2019<\/h1>\n

It\u2019s sometimes said that a lawyer who represents themselves has a fool for a client. A writer who tries to design their own cover is surely running a similar risk. Because I am a fool, and couldn\u2019t help myself, I started to play around with some rough visual concepts. Not because I wanted to dictate what the content of the cover should be \u2013 just to try and get clearer in my own mind why I liked the example covers I\u2019d found.<\/p>\n

Here is what I came up with:<\/h1>\n

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There is a reason why authors should not try and design their own covers! As you can also see, we were trying out a few alternate titles for the collection around this time. While I didn\u2019t think any of these concepts were right, the process did help to clarify, in my own mind, a mood and aesthetic I wanted the cover to have, and some visual cues\/elements that might facilitate that.<\/p>\n

Diplomatically setting aside my attempts at graphic design, Wakefield Press engaged Duncan Blachford at Typography Studio<\/a> to come up with some real <\/em>concepts. I wasn\u2019t familiar with Duncan\u2019s work before this, but if you jump on Typography Studio\u2019s website, you will quickly see that he is not mucking around.<\/p>\n

Importantly, and generously, Duncan took time to read the stories in my collection. Not all designers have the time or the inclination to do this. Which is fine, but as soon as I saw the four phenomenal concepts that Duncan came up with, it was clear to me that he\u2019d really engaged with my writing. I\u2019m thrilled that with Duncan\u2019s permission, I can share these with you now, because they each speak to the book, and they are each magnificent.<\/p>\n

Concept One:<\/h1>\n

\"CoverThis is so striking! On a first look, this stood out to me as possibly my favourite. I love the image of the train tracks, which picks up on multiple stories\/scenes from the collection. The way Duncan has colourised the image suggests, to me, disorder in the natural world (the falcon cannot hear the falconer, etc etc), in tension with the ordered parallel iron tracks. The railway sleepers work in with the \u2018teeth\u2019 and \u2018machine\u2019 of the title, and overall, there is a vague sense of menace, which pleases me.<\/p>\n

Talking it over, one potential reservation was the size and positioning of the type, which perhaps evoked an important upmarket fiction novel<\/em>. My book is not important, I think, but hopefully it is interesting<\/em> \u2013 so perhaps, of the four designs, this was not the most representative option for the book I\u2019d written.<\/p>\n

Concept Two:\"Cover<\/h1>\n

The way that Duncan has rendered this is mesmerising. The muddled, zig-zagged background plays so well with the typeface of the text. I have a soft spot for this one, because it\u2019s based on a line from a story in the collection that\u2019s close to my heart, in which the narrator is staring at \u2018one particular painting: abstract curls of green and blue that suggested an estuary<\/em>.\u2019 Of course, customers in a book store, looking at my book for the first time, won\u2019t have that context, so the cover also needs to stand on its own merits, which I think this does.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Concept Three:<\/h1>\n

\"CoverMy initial notes about this concept: \u2018The more I look at it, the more I love it \u2026 the nod to surrealism\/dadaism suits the stories perfectly \u2026 there\u2019s the feather, and then those spirals (what are they?) suggesting teeth, and clockwork and therefore also time, and time passing. And the feather itself is ambiguous, it could be a fang, or a tusk, and the way it interplays with the text is bold \u2026 I just think it\u2019s so representative of the collection.<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Concept Four:\"Cover<\/h1>\n

I love this one, too, which is a nod to my story \u2018Camelopard\u2019<\/a> which appears in the collection. It\u2019s mysterious, grainy, candid, almost brooding, and suggests a kind of biological process\/machine. Yes, yes, yes.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

All together, we had four amazing concepts to choose from. By email I conferred with Jo as well as my agent, the astute former bookseller, Martin Shaw. It was not an easy decision, but a winner had to be chosen:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Ultimately, we all agreed that this was the most visually striking option. It\u2019s complex, and ambiguous, but \u2013 thanks to the colourful gradient washing across the type \u2013 not pretentious. I reckon people will give this a second look in a bookshop. Hopefully they will linger, flip it over, and read all of the endorsements on the back!<\/p>\n

The background for this cover is a photo entitled \u2018The Feather\u2019 by surrealist visual artist Man Ray. I love this connection, reaching back in time to the 1920s, to another artist trying to push the boundaries of his chosen medium.<\/p>\n

Every time I look at this cover \u2013 and I have looked at it a lot<\/em> \u2013 I see something new that catches my eye. It is never boring, and that\u2019s why I love it.<\/p>\n

I am very grateful to Duncan, Jo, and Wakefield Press for this cover, which has made me a proud and happy first-time author. And if you also like the cover, then just wait until you read the book!<\/p>\n

Andrew Roff’s debut short-story collection,\u00a0The Teeth of a Slow Machine<\/em>, is now available. Many thanks to Duncan Blachford of Typography Studios for his gorgeous designs, and for his permission to reproduce some of his cover concepts here on the blog.<\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Roff’s debut short-story collection, The Teeth of a Slow Machine, is a daring, irreverent exploration of the conundrums of contemporary life, and what it means to be a human. In this guest post, Andrew takes us through the\u00a0design process … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-fun"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-1cA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4624"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4640,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4624\/revisions\/4640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}