I just finished Dexter Palmer's The Dream of Perpetual Motion about a world where mechanical men can fly, but computers are non-existent. The book references Shakespeare's The Tempest, and I paused partway through to read up on the characters from the play (Prospero, Miranda, Caliban) who have counterparts in Palmer's book. The cover art is extraordinary, and equally as interesting to me as the book.
The designer, Ervin Serrano, a senior designer at St. Martin's Press has done some really nice covers, but this is his finest work yet. I couldn't help wondering if the artwork was a photograph of a metal sculpture fabricated by hand, or if there might have been a little digital construction involved. It turns out Photoshop was indispensable. I tracked down an interview with Serrano on the book cover design site Faceout Books where he says, "It took a while for me to find the right images to use until I finally bumped into detail photos of locomotives. They had all the right parts to make the type work. It was also the photoshop work. I think this was the most that I've done in my entire career." The photoshop craftsmanship is superb, but it's the design of the overall cover combined with his Photoshop skill that makes the final result so compelling. Serrano's final words from the interview: "What’s something unique you learned while working on this project?
That photoshop is my best friend."
Thursday, May 20, 2010 at 2:39PM 
