Heart of the Lotus

The heart of the Lotus cover design is built from a base image that is delicate and 100% photographic despite the soft illustrative nature to the image.

All the non-typographical elements of this design were first captured photographically and then combined together in post-production to create a fine art image.

The challenge in this design was to create something unique that was delicate, soft and illustrative. The key elements required were two swans, a lotus, a cross and a triad of birds. Each of these elements have a role in the story and are crucial to the telling of it. How these factors interplayed with one another was important - the swans and the lotus taking primary focus whilst the other elements present but more subtle in the imagery.

Choosing the right typography to match the image and the tone of the story was also important. Working out the best placement and colour palette was important, and these came from much trial and error of the design.

I don't always share how a design is put together or what the original images looked like but this is one that I wanted to share. Why? Because the final design is so different to the original images that were used to put it together.

Each of these elements were captured individually and combined using various photographic and digital techniques to create the final image. Each image had to be processed and edited first before being inserted into the final artwork.

The final typography and layout was then completed once the image was finished.