Behind the Scenes of Book Cover Design: Creating a wraparound cover

Just Nod If You Can Hear Me, Rae Elle Riley

To the trans, the twisted, the closeted, and the dead, I write this for you. To every poor soul killing themselves normal with booze and drugs, happy to bypass their idle hours in chemically induced stupor rather than fight the phalanx of mounting forces in the mind. And especially to all those torn in two. Ripped between a career they love and an identity they’ve tried to delete, but just won’t go away. I’m not here saying I can fix it, but I get it, and I’m with you, and I’m still alive, so just hold on. Because I don’t know any other way.”

Rae came to me asking for something wild, loud, intense—”semi-psychedelic smearings of heart and pulse”.

That’s what she wrote in her brief: “If suicide screamed in your face, what would it look like?”

Not an easy task, right?

She also had a very strong image in her mind—the grinding wheel—which she associated with the Zen circle. She even tried to create a homemade book cover using this image. Check it out!

And here’s a first look at the concepts I came up with:

Concept 1

We’re looking at a story that flows from the front cover, across the spine, and onto the back. The Enso circle (one of the deepest symbols in Japanese Zen) sits right in the middle—subtle, yet like a swirling whirlpool. I love how this part of the illustration will land on the spine, folding naturally and creating fold marks, almost like the character is being torn apart.

Concept 2:

This concept strongly symbolizes the transition from a man to a woman. It originally included a lot of drug-related elements, which were later removed. Another key change was the screaming mouth on the male face. Since the wraparound concept fit the book and author so well, we decided to turn this second concept into a panoramic artwork. We added the circle back in and moved the fire from the left side of the front cover to the back.

And here it is, finalized.

Rae’s book is available here

And this is what she shared about our work together.

“I cannot rave enough about my experience working with Barış Şehri in bringing my book's cover to life. Barış not only delivered his work on time and in a professional manner, he far exceeded my expectations for what my cover could be. I believe he delivered me an original piece of art that has added immense value to the future sales of my book. It was an absolute pleasure working with Barış. I would recommend him to anyone considering both the cover and interior design of any book.”

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the process and the final cover.

Thanks for reading!