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2017-10-10

DT Media: Book Cover Design Contests Underway

DT Media: Book Cover Design Contest

DT Media: Book Cover Design Contest

Gustavo Cerati Bocanada

News on the upcoming books: I have begun cover design contests for my three titles at 99 Designs. I have supplied detailed notes on the books and what I'm looking for, which range from "exactly like this" to "I have no idea what I'm doing." Artists and illustrators will compete and the winners will create covers for the paperback and ebook editions.

Zen Arcade: Classic Video Game Reviews is a collection of 140 videogame reviews for NES, Super NES, Nintendo 64, Turbografx-16, Genesis and Neo-Geo. All the titles have been released on Nintendo's Virtual Console and similar digital platforms. Two more books in the series are planned if this one is successful.

The cover design recreates the style of Nintendo Wii game packaging, complete with the swirl on top with the DTM logo on top-right. There are a tangle of game controllers, some rainbow colors, and a bunch of empty space. I hope the designers really make this one shine.

Greatest Hits: An Anthology in Four Volumes is an anthology of essays from four books, including two that I'm still working on, "Videogame Classics" and "Conversations on Ghibli." Yes, this will be my first published writings on the never-ending Studio Ghibli book project.

The cover design is aiming for a tabloid style. I wanted to use Totoro instead of an LP/CD, but I can't get the copyrights from Ghibli. This may become a problem with my efforts to publish the Ghibli book down the line. Maybe the designers will surprise me with something amazing.

Pop Life is a collection of pop culture essays on film & television, music & audio, video games, and politics & current events. This is the most "Chuck Klosterman" of my three books, and also the largest of the three. I really love this one.

The cover design will be a recreation of Gustavo Cerati's 1999 Bocanada album, but with me on the cover. I'm strongly tempted to leave no text on the cover, which would look cool, but might prove confusing to the public. We'll see how it goes.

The 99 Designs contest runs for a full week, but the first round runs four days. As soon as the covers are finished, I'll hand things over to the formatting team, then we'll be ready for launch. Is there still time to launch before Halloween? Cross yer fingers, kids.

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