I started by outlining the shape of a gun, and the shape of a pen on Illustrator. I chose these two things because I imagined they would effectively show the two sides to the lead character, the businessman side, and the man he is turned into by becoming involved with a gang.
In order to place some more emphasis than just a pen on the idea of the main character being an everyday businessman, I decided to also include the basic 2D shape of a collar and tie. This way, I could get across the point that this is his main identity and the inclusion of a gun is to give him an 'edge', since those looking at the cover will also not know anything about the story.
I kept all of the images very basic and 2D as I thought this approach would lend itself to the minimal aspect of the cover.
After trying a few combinations of layouts with these items I found that it still wasn't very explanatory so I decided to also include the outline of a mans hair. I chose a style that appears very neat, and reminded me of Patrick Bateman in America Psycho, which I thought would be applicable to the concept of this businessman having secrets.
After doing this I started to find different ways that I could use the images I had to try and construct some facial features, which became easier once I realised I could manipulate the trigger of the gun to look like an eye.
I found that the above image most resembled a face, with the gun appearing to also show an eyebrow above the trigger, with the handle being his nose. However, I did think that given how small the trigger was, it made the image look as though the face was wearing a mask over his eyes, similar to a superhero, which I didn't want as it would be misleading in terms of the story.
I made the trigger larger on the gun and found that this revised version looked more like an actual face than before.
I wanted to choose quite an alarming background colour, so I tried a variety of loud colours that i felt would draw attention on a book shelf or website.
After experimenting with some alarming oranges and reds, I concluded that the best option was the yellow as it best showed the colour of the tie, and had the biggest contrast with the dark colours used as well.
For the typography considerations, I wanted to chose something that could demand the attention of the reader without having to take up half the page. At the same time I didn't want it to overtake the image in those stakes, so need something both bold and quite subtle.
I thought that the typeface that fit the criteria I had set most was Bebas Neue as it is one of the few bold typefaces that I find can work effectively and evenly with imagery on a page.
I wanted to choose a much lighter typeface for the authors name and the tagline that he wanted to include - "In this town, Cupid uses bullets."
I looked at what i think are the most effective light typefaces, and concluded that from Geo Sans Light, Helvetica Neue Light and Ultralight, Geo Sans was the best weighting and bore some subtle similarities to Bebas Neue, which I thought would tie them together.
I chose the same colour scheme as used for the image to ensure that they all worked well with the background.
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