Last year I designed and illustrated the book, Who Rocked the Boat?, a business parable by Curtis Bateman, for FranklinCovey. November 15th marks the one year anniversary of the book’s publication. In this post I share with you a peek behind the scenes of how the illustrations were created.
FranklinCovey reached out to me with some questions about how I made the illustrations and I thought you’d find the process interesting.
FranklinCovey: What was the most critical element of the parable or message that you wanted to convey?
The overall map was the central image and needed to capture and summarize the entirety of the parable at a glance.
Even though the parable depicts a “fantastical journey”, as Curtis mentions in the introduction, it needed to feel grounded in some sense of reality. The reader has some image in their mind of the main visual elements: slow-moving jungle river, waterfall, a ship, cliff, mountains.
I searched for locations in Google Earth where there were jungle rivers and mountains.
The ship presented some challenges. At first it was your typical multi-masted galleon with sails, but that kind of ship would never be found on rivers.
We needed something more flat-bottomed and steam powered. But we also needed something with canvas that could be re-fashioned for the airship. I had to create rough sketches showing the top and side views to help me visualize the ship in 3-D.
The challenge was limiting the amount of detail. There needed to be enough so the reader got the sense of what was happening, but also leaving enough room for their own imaginations to fill in the gaps.
FC: The 'characters' in this parable are universal human reactions. What was the creative process like for you to capture the journey, without using embodiments or people as part of that storytelling?
It was a journey of exploration with Curtis. At first we tried using actual characters, but we ran into concerns. As an illustrator one of my tasks is to make the different characters easy for the reader to distinguish. The best way to do this is to choose characteristics that are opposites. If one is large, make another one small. If one is round, make another square. Light vs dark, sharp vs smooth...you get the idea. Using varied physical characteristics we would inevitably be casting different characters in different skin tones and body types. The problem is that several of the reactions have possible negative interpretations. This would unintentionally make associations with what the reader is seeing and the name of each of the reactions.
But the parable wasn’t intended to be judgmental since there are positive aspects to all of the reactions. It would require more writing gymnastics to straighten it out, but by then the first impression would have already been made. We even explored using animals or robots as characters, but in the end all of this seemed to take us farther away from the simple, central ideas.
The solution was to just not physically depict the reactions. Since the parable was introduced visually via the map, we decided that at that distance you couldn’t see characters anyway, so I just chose views that kept the viewer at the best distance—far enough away to see the main action. Ultimately this engages the reader’s imagination and let’s them use their own mental pictures of the reactions’ characteristics.
FC: Collaboration with authors is common in illustration projects. How did you ensure your artwork aligned with Curtis' vision?
At the beginning Curtis gave me the latest version of the manuscript, with stick figure drawings.
I sent him some of my illustration samples in the pen and ink style I thought was appropriate. We started with the overall map. I sketched out my best impression of the four main zones over the jungle river and where the ship should be at each stage.
We had regular Zoom calls and he gave me his feedback and changes. It was just a back and forth process until the concept and ideas felt as clear as possible.
FC: Which was your favorite scene/illustration and why?
Besides the main overall map, I like the way the illustrations for “Part Three, Up the Other Side”, turned out. The spread shows the bottom of the waterfall, and on the next page you see where the crew has dismantled the ship and are in the process of moving the pieces up the face of the cliff. Even though we don’t see the characters we do see the results of their teamwork and effort.
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