Cover: "Trompe L'oeil" 

I designed this cover for Tim Harnett's debut novel, Trompe L'oeil. It is the story of "five friends and the Yoko Ono that comes between them." This book is what the author refers to as "vulgar literary" in the sense that it uses the natural colloquial dialog of college students which--in my opinion--gave it the feel of something like The Catcher in the Rye. The review I posted of it on Amazon was: "Friends, coffee, pop-culture, coffee, alcohol, coffee, insomnia,
coffee, sex, coffee, waxing philosophical, coffee, strip-clubs, coffee,
nameisms, coffee, parties, coffee, Monty Python debates, coffee,
college, coffee, conflict amongst friends, coffee, Kurt Cobain, coffee." I wanted to give the book a raw--but caffenated--feeling. I was very happy in the way the cup broke just right and the coffee seeped out of it allowing me to spend way less time in Photoshop that I'd been expecting to. As he is an emerging author, Tim at first was thinking about not actually including his name on the cover at all, but he liked the idea of having his name peeking out from beyond the steam of the coffee. All and all I am very happy with this cover and it was submitted to the 2008 PubWest Book Design Awards...cross your fingers!