The making of the cover for The Venetian Contract by Marina Fiorato

The illustrator reads the novel and, inspired by the read, draws a sketch.

Getting the sketch approved by the art director and presenting it to the customer.

Customer: Awesome concept, but I have to think about whether it’s really fitting or not. Definitely, no black background: the story is light and airy as stained glass arabesques with frequent mentioning of the sea and water in general.

Smoothing out some details of the image and trying different backgrounds.

Customer: I prefer the turquoise background and I’d like more of Yana’s signature fine elements in the center. Need to see how it will work with the title.

The type designer calligraphs the title and the illustrator adds details.

The customer chooses the bottom version. Finishing up the calligraphy, making the black horse switch places with the gray, adding the publishing house logo, and typesetting the cover.