I am happy to have been a part of Layers Magazine’s most recent issue. I was one of 3 designers selected to rework a book cover for the magazine’s Design Makeover column. The client was author Joseph Blondo, for his book, Caught Between Cultures: A Story of Milton Wan and Viet Nam. Design Makeover writer Jake Widman provided the original cover, comments from the author, some images and a synopsis of the story.
After a difficult childhood in 40′s & 50′s Saigon, Milton Wan escaped on a tramp steamer, to join his sister in Seattle. Not long after, Wan returned to his homeland, this time as an American soldier. Hard to fathom really and one can only imagine the incredible feelings Milton Wan had to face.
So how was I going to approach the enormity of this story in a single image meant to drive customers to pick up this book and buy it? I felt the original cover was missing the human element. The silhouette of a lone soldier came to me immediately and I went with that. I created the picture in my head by piecing together various images and then rendering the final art from that. It remains to be seen if the author will choose any of the 3 redesigns from the magazine, but I enjoyed the process all the same.
Redesign
Original cover
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