Meh...

Got my first suggestions back for the cover of APoS-Derry...and we are not impressed. One was a cameo of a boy's head with a sketch of barbed wire run along the bottom of the image, like a cute rendition of Auschwitz. I actually jolted at how wrong it was.

This is the other one: not really bad but not all that interesting, either...though I do like the image of the street. Maybe outlining the letters to emphasize them? Softening the edges of the block holding the title? Have barbed wire wrapped around the title and across the bottom, over my name...or under? A different font? Would that work? I dunno.

Maybe what I'm telling them I want is too confusing...

I’d like the title to read:
A Place of Safety
Volume One
Derry

Or something along those lines. With this as the tag line: "A young Catholic boy in Northern Ireland is drawn into the political tumult of the 1960s & ‘70s in this thrilling tour of an historically volatile conflict."

I don't want sketches. I prefer it be more dark and don't mind stark. I don't like busy imagery. I'm looking for something that is more immediate and intense.

Is that too vague? Too scattershot? Lacking in enough detail? I really don't know. How do I get across that I want something intense and captivating?

Another artist is working up something, so we'll see what they come up with. But shit, I can do as well as this, and I don't charge me anything.