"The Fountains of Silence" Book Cover Design

Imagine: You are transported to 1950’s Spain, under the rule of dictator Francisco Franco. You are the son of a wealthy oil tycoon who has no interest in the family business and wants to pursue photography instead. 6 different lives unfold before you as you go through this book, switching perspectives and gaining insight about the country in the mid century.

With this design, I wanted to bring in the beauty of Spain that one of the main characters would have taken note of immediately. I researched and discovered the national flower of Spain is a carnation. Using the watercolor brush in Rebelle 3, I illustrated the cover to have a large red carnation, using the red to bring in the romance that builds during the story. Inside the book, the carnation is present again, this time with petals falling. There are 6 petals, each representing a different character that the reader has a point-of-view for. On the beginning spread of each chapter, there is a blank page with the carnation and the petals falling, but on the page next to it lies the petal that represents the character whose point-of-view the reader is seeing. There is a lot of subtlety in this design that can be easily overlooked, but holds a lot of meaning to whoever looks past the surface level.