In the previous blog we have already established the difficulty we went through in designing the right cover for Love Swipe Blackmail. Here’s how we had progressed.
Like I reported to you in the last blog, Love Swipe Blackmail is a mystery thriller. And we wanted it to be counted amongst the top Indian thriller novels. So the cover had to denote mystery / suspense. I took the plunge and drew the first sketch. The video that you see will also show you the user interface I had sketched for the SOFU app. SOFU app is a dating app that the protagonist uses in Love Swipe Blackmail.
The cover shows the name of the novel and the following elements:
- Heart in place of the ‘V’ of Love
- Devil’s horns on ‘S’ & ‘E’ of Swipe
- Devil’s pitchfork instead of the ‘I’ in Swipe. The pitchfork has a long tail shaped like a mischievous smile with a finger swiping on it, like one swipes on dating apps;
- A hooded figure instead of the first ‘A’ of Blackmail
- All letters of Blackmail in different fonts
While I was designing this, my family members were making their own beautiful rendition of their concept of Love Swipe Blackmail. I think this video explains it all.
Then came the devil series from our designer. Apparently, he took a liking to my sketchbook and let his imagination run wild. Look at the amazing renditions he gave us.
Some of us started liking the devil cover. But then some also said that it was too cliched. So I sat with the designer, explained to him the novel’s synopsis, and told him that we want Love Swipe Blackmail to rank amongst Indian suspense novels and Indian thriller novels. He opined that an important part of the story is built on WhatsApp chats and the dating app, so why don’t we have cover that gives space to both – dating apps and WhatsApp. And voila, he gave us the mobile interface series. If you see the video, you will notice that the doodle art on the cover is an ode to WhatsApp, and the chat shown on the mobile screen is an ode to dating apps.
Rumour has it that even this cover will undergo an uplift. When it does, I will keep you posted. Watch out more for this space folks!