Author John Stowers had conceived of a unique fantasy world for the first novel in his young adult series The Kima Chronicles, and needed help in bringing it to life in the form of a book cover. Not only was this an opportunity to create a compelling cover, John also needed a logo for his new imprint, Kima Valley Press, as well as a typographic style that would define the series. Working on these all at the same time leant a cohesive design quality to the whole package.

The first book in the series, Seeds of Hope, tells the story of teenager Kima Rand, who takes it upon herself to save her village from starvation by making a dangerous journey to the National Seed Depository after nuclear fallout finally renders their own crops unviable. Along the way she encounters “deaders,” (this world’s version of zombies), mutated plants and animals, and the remains of a world that is beyond her understanding. Although this is ostensibly a book for young people, as a reader, I picked up on some adult literary themes, especially the Dust Bowl struggles of the Joad Family in Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” and the surprising alien world of Stephen King’s “Dark Tower” series. It was a joy to communicate my thoughts and ideas about the eventual cover art to John as I read the novel, and to have those perceptions validated in our correspondence.

It would be a shame to reduce this to a zombie novel, as it’s much more than that. The image I kept coming back to was the pack of mutated wolves, who were dangerous not only because of their massive size, but also because of their newfound intelligence. The other image that stuck with me was Kima’s trusty hoe - simultaneously a farming tool used to sustain life, but also a deadly weapon in the right hands. The backdrop of a sunset suggests the waning years of Kima’s small farming community, and the warm colors are the complete opposite of a lush green that you might expect, turning this mountain range into a wasteland. The illustration itself was created via Procreate on an iPad Pro, with some help from Adobe Illustrator.

Typographically, I wanted something that evoked the manual printing technology available in the old west, so the typefaces I chose for the cover have a worn, shaky quality. Technology in Kima’s world has collapsed and printing presses are a thing of the past. The “Kima Chronicles” are written by hand in the novel, but I imagined a time when printing technology has started to return and Kima’s adventures can be told widely throughout the world.

Creating the logo for John’s new imprint, Kima Valley Press, was a unique challenge because its name intimately ties it to The Kima Chronicles. It needed to be something that could stand alone, but also relate to this particular book. In a needed bit of levity, we are soon introduced to “Rocky” the flying squirrel, a sly nod to the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon, but a memorable character in his own right. I couldn’t shake the idea of an animal mascot, similar to Alfred A. Knopf’s dog emblem, or the Penguin Books logo. I presented John with multiple concepts for the press logo, but ultimately, Rocky was the one that stuck.

If you’re interested in this book, you can find it here.