Creation of the Book Cover for Surviving Summer Camp

It's always fascinating for me to peek behind the curtain into artist's creative process. I was fortunate enough to work on the book cover of Surviving Summer Camp with a brilliant British artist named Alan Brown. Alan is a UK-based illustrator with a background in storyboarding, graphic design, and tattoo art. You can see more of his work at Alan Brown Advocate Art.

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Alan has illustrated for clients like HarperCollins, Watts, and Viz Media's Ben 10 Omniverse graphic novels. I was immediately taken with Alan's dynamic and colourful visual style and was especially impressed with his use of light. Here's what I sent Alan in the creative brief:

The new book, Surviving Summer Camp, follows three brothers who go to summer camp in the Pacific Northwest, become separated from their camp leader, and are forced to survive on their own. It's a fun, action/adventure story with lots of laughs along the way. The story is told by the middle brother (12-year old Eddy) in first-person, past tense.

For the cover, I am looking for something with Alan's style of dynamic comic book-style movement and bright colours - leaning more toward upper middle grade 10-12 year olds. If possible, I'd like the cover to have a main image and some smaller simpler images around the cover's edges.

I have attached some reference imagery and a general concept / brief below. I'm

totally open to Alan's ideas. 

The book genery is action / adventure / survival - in the vein of the popular novel Hatchet (and others in the Hatchet series).

Title across the top: Surviving Summer Camp 

Bottom centre: Paul Breau

Main image: Eddy, the main character (husky 12-year with dark red hair) is wearing hiking boots, shorts and a t-shirt and has a large, oversized backpack. He's desperately running away from something unknown/unseen in the lush Pacific Northwest forest (he would be running toward the viewer - not away). 

Tall, moss-covered trees tower above him, with ferns, thick undergrowth, and damp earth beneath his feet. 

Filtered sunlight shines through the thick canopy of Douglas firs and cedar trees, creating an atmosphere full of tension and natural beauty. 

If possible I would like to incorporate other aspects of the novel, using smaller images around the main image, similar to The Land of Stories examples included. 

Examples:

1) CU of roasting marshmallows. 

2) CU bear face or silhouette of bear

3) CU of log cabin / or sign that reads "Cougar Cabin"

4) Silhouette of kids canoeing

5) a raging river

6) CU of archery target

Let me know what's possible. 

And here's what Alan came up with on his very first

try:

Surviving Summer Camp Book Cover Sketch 1

Here's the refined version 2

Surviving Summer Camp Book Cover Sketch 2

Here's the first coloured version:

Surviving Summer Camp Book Cover Sketch 3 Coloured

And here's the final book cover - I couldn't be happier with the results:

Surviving Summer Camp Final Book Cover Front

You can check you the book here:

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