Content Strategy Development involves meticulously planning and crafting a roadmap that outlines how content will be created, distributed, and managed to achieve specific business goals.
Octavia E. Butler, the world-class science fiction author, is well known for not being afraid to put black people in the center of the futuristic worlds her books explore. Many of these titles have recently been reprinted by Grand Central Publishing, leading to an array of gorgeous covers based in vivid illustrations. Kindred represents a slight, but meaningful departure from her futuristic work - in this book, we journey to the past. Dana, a black woman living in 1970s America, is inexplicably transported to the Antebellum South, onto the plantation of her ancestors, and is forced to come to terms with the truths of her lineage. It is a raw and visceral book; written with the intention to make people "feel history."
What were the design concerns?
The goal was to create a cover that honored Butler's intentions, which was also in conversation with current re-designs of her book and other books in similar genres. This was done as a fan homage to Butler’s legacy, not in association with the Octavia Butler Estate.
Kindred calls on readers to reckon with the violent reality of its subject. In this way, it was important to me to base the cover on reality as well. It was also essential to avoid a recent cover trend-turned-pitfall as noted by Brandon Taylor: "vaguely human figures on various poppy backgrounds" book covers that hint at book contents including either non-white, non-cis male, or non-straight representation. As Kindred is rooted in the real, such abstraction especially wouldn't do this landmark title justice. At this point, I decided against illustration as a means to communicate, a symbolic departure away from Butler's more scifi-based novels and recent reprints.
The design I chose was visually tied to Kindred's ending; after killing Rufus, her ancestor & the owner of the plantation, Dana leaves the past for the last time and finds out that a fire was lit to cover up the murder. She is unable to return to the past, due to taking action for her own safety. The design shows two photographs that take up a similar amount of space in the canvas, except they are separated by fire and one, the past, burns while the other, Dana in the present, is flipped and lifted over. Despite the sheer violence of it all, Dana survives. Sometimes, that's all one can really say.
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