Book Cover Design

This graphic was the background image illustrated for the book Plenty More Fish in the CBD, David Rhind and Geoff Neal - published by Random House New Zealand in 2005.
Described as every man's guide to catching the perfect girl the book required over a dozen James Bond-esque tongue-in-cheek illustrations showing the various techniques of ensnaring the dream woman that every guy is after (apparently).
www.plentymorefish.co.nz 

An endlessly fascinating volume of South Pacific miscellany - scientific data, historical facts, cultural 'trivia', sporting feats, mythology, practical information and vital statistics. The collection contains the essential, the illuminating, the curious and the useless.
A simple and clean cover design was created by photographing and scanning a group of pacific island shells and combining them with paper textures, effects, and an engraving from a classic New Zealand postage stamp.

A wealthy businessman issues a global challenge to all biotechnology corporations: clone Jesus Christ. As precious artefacts - the spearhead reputed to have been used to stab Jesus on the cross, a piece of the cross itself, and the shroud of Turin - go missing from churches and private collections around the world, three scientific groups start their top-secret experiments.
The challenge for this cover to was to convey elements of crime, christianity and science. This quality fiction thriller needed an arresting cover that reinforced the strong title. Careful texture layering of photography and digital painting was blended into the resulting cover illustration: originating from a simple, clean, photolibrary image of a syringe.

Most novels about the Nazi period portray Germans as the perpetrators of war and genocide. This work provides an authentic insight into how ordinary Germans - distinguished only by their artistic skill - suffered under Nazi rule and the catastrophe of war. Vividly told and deeply moving, it tells of one woman's struggle to survive.
Layer after layer of texture and imagery make up this cover design. Subtle dotscreen textures were created as the blending element to combine the archival images, contemporary photography and an unobtrusive swastika.

The Whanganui River at the turn of the twentieth century is a busy thoroughfare, taking sightseers through the spectacular landscape by paddle steamer and acting as highway for the sparse scatterings of settlements along its twisting length. A strange, silent girl, haunts the banks of the river where the accident occurred that robbed her of her mind. Like the tributaries that trickle down the mountains and join the mighty river, so the lives of these people come together in this vivid and moving tale of a stunningly unique place.
Intended as a dreamy and slightly ghostly depiction of the novel's themes this cover features a handcrafted title logo in a bleeding ink style to complete the aged effect.

In her early twenties and with a marriage already behind her, Diane Brown set off across the world by ship. Thirty years on, Brown tries to make sense of the old self as well as the new.
To portray the themes of love, loss and travel an intensive photomanipulation of the life preserver was carried out. The challenging project, trickier than it might appear, was ultimately satisfying and symbolises the complex themes of the novel.

A woman rows across a lake with a small part-Asian child. The woman is Violet Trench, who in future years will run the Violet Caf‚ with an iron will. Those who work in her caf‚ come from a diverse range of backgrounds, but each with their own troubles and each affected by working for this enigmatic woman.
Utilising striking and colourised photography this cover design's success depends on the simplicity of the design and the colouration. Third Eye has also designed the cover for Fiona Kidman's The Captive Wife.

'They come for me as I sleep. Their pale faces stare at me, their soft voices tell me to wake, to wake. They come to remind me of the night, to remind me of what I have done.' Only Charlie doesn't know what he has done. His shorts are covered in blood, there's a bump on his forehead and on the news it says the two young women he was with the night before were brutally murdered.
Paul Cleave's second novel was given a similar styling as his first: solarised and colourised photography, splattertitle text and a collage of elements hinted at in the novel's teaser.

'The Southern Cross cuts through my heart instead of through the sky.'  Written in 1963, this work is an exquisitely composed precursor to An Angel at My Table, the autobiography Janet Frame wrote 20 years later (inspiring Jane Campion's memorable film adaptation). Frame rejected the pressure to publish Towards Another Summer in her lifetime, because she claimed the story was 'embarrassingly personal'.
Published in both hard and softcover this cover design's tranquil imagery reflects the autobiographical nature of the novel and features the distinctive signature and photographic portrait of Janet Frame herself.