Book Cover Design: The Moon and Stars

I had a lot of fun designing and illustrating the cover for Jenna Warren’s debut novel, The Moon and Stars, published in October by Fairlight Books.

Book cover illustration for The Moon and the Stars by Jenna Warren. A decorative astrological border with roses, a lion, a pegasus, a lyre, and a goose, with a moon shaped chandelier and man singing on a stage and a musical notes pattern

I was commissioned by Rebecca Blackmore-Dawes at Fairlight to create a cover that would capture the love of drama and musicals depicted beautifully within the novel, along with the iconic old theatre setting, decorated with celestial imagery. The story features a strong nod to The Phantom of the Opera.

Book cover illustration design for The Moon and the Stars by Jenna Warren. A decorative astrological border with roses, a lion, a pegasus, a lyre, and a goose, with a moon shaped chandelier and man singing on a stage and a musical notes pattern

The Moon and Stars is published 20th October and available to pre-order here. Thanks to my agents at The Artworks!

The Little Mermaid Creative Process

As we continue to be under lockdown due to the Coronavirus crisis, we might not be able to visit any bookshops in person but the paperback edition of The Little Mermaid was published just last week, so I thought I’d share some behind the scenes sneak peeks of my illustration process.

The Little Mermaid is rewritten by the wonderful Geraldine McCaughrean, based on the original tale by Hans Christian Andersen and published by Orchard Books. With design by the fantastic Sarah Malley.

The Cover

Book cover and back cover for The Little Mermaid Picture Book. A Mermaid illustration swimming in amongst a coraf reef and an underwater palace with fish and a seahorse.

The very first thing I set about doing was deciding what our protagonist, the Little Mermaid would actually look like. I was excited to be able to draw lots of swirling hair and to create lots of fish scale details for her tail- one of my favourite things is adding lots and lots of detailing. I also started to create her underwater sea palace and coral reef setting.

I tend to sketch some things in pencil and then move on to drawing digitally in Adobe Illustrator using a Wacom tablet. I draw a very rough shape before working back in to this to add more detail. I’ll draw all of the elements; characters and background scenery and then start playing around with layering them, figuring out what works best.

Rough illustration of a mermaid and a palace under the sea
The Little Mermaid Picture Book rough sketches of an underwater palace or castle and coral plants

Once I was happy with her general look, I redrew her to fit the cover better, and started to try to frame the title with seaweed. I sketched out a basic seaweed shape, drew this digitally and then thickened the seaweed up, trying to make it look more organic. I then filled the rest of the cover with decorative coral, shells and bubbles.

Rough version of a book cover for The Little Mermaid. A mermaid illustration swimming with fish and a seahorse.

Cover work inprogress

Work in progress sketches and images of The Little Mermaid book cover coming together

Cover sketch, more work in progress and final cover

Inside the book

Here are a few initial sketches and progress images from the interior illustrations, all the way up to final artwork.

Rough sketches and development artwork for The Little Mermaid

Sketch and work in progress

Picture book spread of mermaids swimming in front of a castle under the sea

Final illustration

Sketches from the Little Mermaid picture book. Fireworks on a ship and a mermaid looks on

Sketch and work in progress

Picture book spread of the Little Mermaid and the prince and his ship with fireworks in the sky

Final illustration

Sketches of stormy waters

Sketch and work in progress

Picture book spread of a ship caught in a storm with waves rolling and boat sinking

Final illustration

Thanks for reading! You can see more of my books and other work at https://www.laurabarrett.co.uk/books.