Open Secrets
Open secrets is a horror mystery novel that I’m in the process of writing. I thought it would be a fun exercise to design a cover for it that would match the overall themes and feeling of the story.
The first cover I designed for Open Secrets was based around the setting and inciting incident of the plot.
The story is set in a small town in Michigan on the edges of a large and mysterious swamp, and the plot is set in motion by the murder of a woman who lives in the town. I used a stock photo of a swamp and adjusted the colors to make it look darker and eerier in order to make it fit the feeling of the story. I then added red and blue lighting to indicate the presence of police vehicles. Simply placing the title and byline over the image made the cover look incomplete, so I created a mockup of crime scene tape with the title on it.
While I did like the finished look of this cover design, once I saw it in a mockup I found it to look a bit too much like the generic mystery and thriller paperback covers that you might find at a store in the airport, and while it did invoke a sense of mystery and horror, it did not mesh with the dark humor I used throughout the book.
I decided to go back to the drawing board and make something more unique.
For this version of the cover I decided to play into the more into the dark humor of the story, while not making it seem too lighthearted.
A common sight in small towns is chalk art on the sidewalk left by children playing, so I decided to juxtapose the sorts of artwork children would make with chalk with the darker aspect of a murder. The shadow with its head replaced by a “dead” smiley face references the murder that kicks off the plot. Due to the nature of the cover I was also able to integrate the title and byline in a way that did not distract from the cover art.
Between the two covers I designed I much prefer this one, and feel like it better reflects the overall feeling of the book.
