Book cover Design for The Patron Thief of Bread

Last year, I was contacted by the U.S. independent publisher CandleWick Press about designing the book cover for Lindsay Eagar’s new title: The Patron Thief of Bread. The commission includes a full coloured flat jacket ( they would like to see 3 drafts first ) and four interregional boarder designs in black and white for each chapter. I finally received the book from the publisher this week and it looks amazing in hand! I so decided to share my design approach with anyone who is interested in the making.

Research & Sketches

In the very beginning I've been given the full manuscript from the author, which doesn’t always happen. Most of the time the agency or author will provide you a summary of the story but in this case it was really helpful for me to have a over all grasp of the mood, world setting and the plot.

The Patron Thief of Bread is a story about tale of love, self-discovery, and what it means to be rescued, through the difficult orphan life of an eight-year-old girl named Duck, who was raised by a roving band of street urchins, one day found herself unexpectedly had become a patron thief in the bakery. The story takes place in a little town with an abandoned cathedral ruin ( with gargoyles on the top) adjacent to a winding river in medieval-era rural France. The town is small but bustling, with marketplaces, stores, and the bakery where the story takes place.

The initial drawing is shown below. I started by experimenting with all the elements Lindsay asked me to include for the cover. I like the gargoyle on the back, but the composition of the front half just doesn't seem as intriguing as it could be.

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For the 2nd draft, a birds-eye view of the town as seen from the top of the cathedral ruin, with Duck standing on top of it, I opened the image after moving the gargoyle portion to the front cover. This version immediately felt more dynamic and interesting. I nearly feel like the wind is blowing in the scene because of the slanted angel and the birds. Even while I liked this second draft, it still seemed like our eyes were simply following Duck into the book spine and stopping there. Readers typically only glance at the front cover at first, so I'll need something to help them lock the glazing.

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The monologue of the gargoyle in the book was written in a beautiful style that gave me an enteral sense of sorrow. Years after years, it stood by itself, all by itself, watching the passing of the mortals and longing for the things that were no longer there for it. I really love this folklore story-telling style, I was wondering how can I convey this feeling with drawings.

So I did more research at this point, looking for a solution to make the book cover less straightforward about the content and more expressive of the feeling. Something that makes reader wonder. It happened to me a few days ago I saw a collection of movie poster designs by Olly Moss. The double exposure design, which combined the essential elements of a movie with iconic scenery within the shape, really inspired me.

So in the 3rd draft, instead of giving Duck a face, I drew a silhouette of her to frame the town and surroundings. I hope the suggestiveness will provide the young readers enough information on the protagonist while still leaving room for their imagination, making it easier for them to relate to her story.

A few years ago, while developing my indie game LUNA, I also grew to love the ancient / mediaeval manuscript border designs, apparently this illustration was seen by people from CandleWick Press and that’s why they contact me at the first place. So I thought it could be great to add a beautiful border to the cover to give it a hint of the mediaeval era. I also broke up the layers with the birds, keeping the back cover with simply a quiet morning image of the town and bakery, and used a more vibrant twilight colour palette for the front, when the sun was setting and the town, rivers, and gargoyle were illuminated. As a result, this is how the 3rd draft looked.

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Finalize & Detailing

It was a relief that later, when the author and art director Matt Roeser both chose the third design, we all adored the style and, with more assistance from Lindsay, she gave me the pieces that might be used in the border. The same concept also guided the placement of seasonal objects and story-related items in the header of each chapter. The challenging part was over, and this was when the fun started!

A detailed illustration needs a lot of references, in this case, anything from gargoyle design to French medieval town architecture. It’s funny that I used to think that all illustrators just KNEW how to draw everything from memory and that using references was somehow cheating? But turns out I was an idiot and everybody uses reference. References are crucial if you want to improve your drawing skills. Here are some of the sources I consulted to finish the illustration.

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The final cover was completed after some tweaking and adjusting. Even though they initially appear to be there only for decoration, I adore how each object on the border refers to a specific section of the story. I hope the reader will understand what each of them refers to when they close the book's cover after finishing it.

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Overall I really enjoyed the whole process and appreciated having the opportunity to design for this wonderful book. I’d be really happy if you might find anything usefully in this blog. It’s out and you can find it where you usually shop books! Happy reading!

no new year resolutions

I painted this piece called Pilgrims in the last few days of 2021.I think it kind of expressed a collective tiresome we all experienced over these few years. Regardless it might have gone worth because of the pandemic, as an adult in this chaotic new tech ages, there's already more than enough things in life to stress you out.

Looking back at my youth, happiness felt very differently, it lasted much longer and deeper. Simple things like fireworks, going to swimming, riding bikes can charge up my happy battery for days. However the pure happy moment in life now is almost rare. I thought when I finished the game I worked on for four years, I would feel four-years-worth of happiness. But I didn't, I just felt relieved, then tired. And the work can never be truly finished, after launch you have to do promotion, marketing, localization, porting...even after all that, people still ask about your next project, and I also wondering what game should I do next so that I can provide to people I am a real game dev, not just someone who got lucky on her first shot.

So there's seems no ending on the path I took. No matter how much effort I put in, I can't help but feeling the absence of accomplishment. Because when you achieved the original goal, the newer finishing line just seems immediately been extended further, it feels like someone hiding in the dark, pulling it maliciously.

You never feel arrived. I wondered why.

During my day off I can barely feel relaxed. It has become a joke now, I feel guilty that I could have use the time off to work on some side project, however, I really don't wanna do it because it’s my day off, I earned it. But I get bored really quick by doing nothing. My husband suggest me to "Do something just for fun" but it has became the most difficult thing for me to come up. Sometimes I got so stressed out I just went back to work.

Seems like as an adult, the culture tend to teach us to learn to appreciated the beauty within difficult things, the delayed gratification, work hard then play hard. I am now has become the master of delayed gratification, bullet journal queen, workaholic. But I also become my harshness critics, I judge my own performance all the time to the highest standard for no reason. I realized I complete lost the ability to please myself.

For example, when we gave up getting pleasure from simple things and trying to learn to play an instrument instead, the rewards IS fulfilling, compare with the joy of eating sweets, but it was the kind of happiness that require a lots of hardship. Too much hardship can be tiresome, and nowadays most of the time when you work hard you have no energy left to play hard.

Now I finally know why I can’t simply do anything “For fun”, because for fun is against all the productive-self-discipline doctrine, and deep-down, I don't want to be judged by myself about how well I did on “having fun”.

Today is the first day of 2022.
My new year resolutions is not to have one. New year resolution is a trap for adults to feel guilty for no reason. I hope by end of 2022 I look back at the year, I don't have to achieve anything and also regret none. Just like this painting, it wasn't finished actually, I know I can always make it more perfect by adding more details but I felt I should just leave it as it was, it doesn’t needs to be a master piece or even a good piece.

What's in a modern witch's bag

Every year when Autumn arrives, I always feel the world around me gets a little bit more magical. Maybe it’s due to the changing colour of the leaves or the foggy evening . It can also be because I know, by now the Hogwarz is starting its new term, young wizards and witches are attending school.

Funny thing is, you hardly see any images of wizards and witches in swim suit, or sun bathing on the beach. For some reason, magic always seems to associates with the season around fall. The cooking cauldron, black robe, dried herbs and wooden cottages with fire cracking in the stove, from Halloween to Dia de los Muertos, all of these seem to be very autumn - wintery. So recently I felt maybe it's time to draw something magic related.

This drawing was inspired by the trend on the internet called “ What’s in my bag? “. I remember it stared on the internet around 2005, or maybe even earlier, basically all of sudden everyone just started to sharing the picture of what’s in their bags. Many years later I learned ( not 100% sure but I definably remember reading it somewhere) that this particular trend was a cleaver marketing campaign idea from the famous Notebook brand Moleskin to promote their product. If it was truth, it was still one of the best marketing strategy I ever seen. This idea took off like a fire very soon in the fashion / beauty industry, what's in the bag become less relevant, but what is the brand of your belongs and how it relates to your status and taste.

It's kind of naughty to be interested in other people’s personal belongs, but let’s admit, who doesn’t? Curiosity and comparison is human natural. Because of it was deeply rooted in our social behaviour, this trend is still going stronger than ever. Now it has came from bags tour to wardrobe tour to house tour. Even for the minimalists, " There's nothing in my bag", "There's nothing in my house" still follows this trend's logic.

Because I work from home I don’t have a work bag anymore, since Covid the frequency of using any bag is getting lower than ever. Most of time I go out just to buy food, pay with my phone, I don’t even need to bring the wallet, so a Sainsbury's recycle bag has become my bag. But it’s still fun to imaging what will be inside a witch’s bag, epically if she’s living in the same age like us, surrounded with technology and many social influence.

Window with a View

Image by Jim Higham

Last summer, I brought my friends to visit Canterbury, one of my favourite town in England. Sadly at that time due to the recent lock down, the whole town was still shrouded in the gloom of the epidemic. Also it was a shame that they didn’t get to see the magnificent Christchurch gate ( image left ) due to its construction work. In the town centre, some shops were been emptied, some were permanently closed down. The few that still open were clearly struggling because of the lacking of tourists. It was really quiet but not the peaceful kind, there’s an unsettle feeling lingering in the air.

It was very sad for me because I often think about the time I spend there. In July 2003, I arrived the U.K. all by myself, attending a summer language course in Canterbury before join in the University. 18 yrs old me was full of energy, curious and optimised about the future. Ironically, it was when the Chaos of SARS ( the more deadly version of Coivd) had just went away back in China, who would have possibly thought that the world will change forever this time.

I remembered the streets were always full of life, shop buzzing with business, people sitting outside the cafes and restaurants. Me and my classmates would explore the town almost everyday, running on the cobble stone road and finding secret path to sneak into the cathedral. We spoke broken English but were having the time of our life, now all these feels like a million years ago. To me, there’s just something magical about this place, it had put a charm on my since day one.

It was the 2nd day of my arrival, I woke up early due to the jet lag, the morning sun just raised, the whole accommodation was quiet. Having nothing to do, I went to the communal kitchen searching for food. Then suddenly I heard a sound quite unusual, it took me a few sec to realized it was a church bell ringing from not afar. Although I’ve never heard a real church bell rang before, it still brought me a sense of odd familiarly and comfort.

I looked out of the window, it was a bright summer day. The people of the town not yet awake, no cars on the street, a postman walked around the corner and there was a cat crouching in the shade of an oak tree. Parts of an ancient city wall weaving inside out among the town houses, tree branch’s gently dancing in the wind with seagulls hovering overhead, crying loudly. The bell continued to ring. Not far behind the rows of old red brick rooftops and chimneys, I saw, suddenly an magnificent gothic cathedral rises from the ground, it’s many spikes shot into the heaven, reflecting the golden sunshine.

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It was the first time I had seen such grand architecture, together with the bell and the town, everything felt just like came straight from a fairy tale story. Although I've seen sceneries like this from films and cartoons, but when it was right in front of my eyes, the surreal-ness still took my breath away.

I wondered for how many centuries, this view has remained unchanged. I thought about all the travellers from the past, who had come from far and wide to make the pilgrimage here. They might had also heard the same church bell rang, looked out of the window of their inn, and gasped by the same glorious view of the cathedral. But they were long gone, so how strange we could be connected like this, crossed time and space, sharing the same awestruck moment of tranquillity.

In couple of decades, I too will be gone. My thoughts, my deeds and everything that once made me, will cease to exist. Finally when those who once remembered me also gradually passes away, my existence will be completely erased from this world. People came and went, again and again. But the cathedral will still stand, like the anchor of time, a witness of changes. As a foreigner alone in a foreign land, I don’t know why can this moment feel so nostalgic.

Until today, I still don’t have an answer to this question. I only know it’s a moment in my life that I can never forget. I painted it down because it carries more than what any words can say.

Hello darkness my old friend

Sometimes I suddenly feel really sad. Nothing bad happened, not particularly about anything either, feels more like it was an old friend revisiting.

“Hello, I’m your sadness from the past, do you still remember me?”
“ Yes, I do. How good to see you again. Let’s sit down together and do some tear-dropping like the good old days.“

Weep. Weep.
The world turns a bit blurry, like watching via a rainy day window.

I recently read a book by Rollo May called Psychology and the human dilemma which talks about how we should embrace negative emotions in our lives, like anxiety. I think this theory is worth applying to the other negative emotions as well. He talked about how we should learn to differ those feels, whether they’re constructive or Destructive ( Neurological）. Because the latter can cause us physically feeling lost control of emotion, which leads to the breakdown of personality or likely becoming apathetic. However, some constructive negative emotions can force you to seek out solutions. If we try to annihilate them. we lose the opportunity to fight, fight for the true freedom.

Here’s a quote from the book:

We must seek a new and deeper understanding of freedom. Freedom means facing and enduring anxiety, while avoiding it means automatically giving up freedom.

So I feel in a world that sells [anxiety] and at the same time sells [the antidote to anxiety], such reflections give inspiration and hope. We are anxious because anxiety is a unique part of who we are. The question is not how to avoid it, but how to face it properly, to recognize what we are really afraid of, so that this ability to connect with the world becomes the courage that helps us solve our problems.

Some of my past favorite sketches were done because I was very sad at that time. They comfort me and help me gone past those rough periods. I don’t want to forget them, because they made me who I am today and because of these experiences, the rare glimpse of happiness in life tasted sweeter and more precious.