The first 3 covers for Ivan Brandon and Nic Klein’s VIKING are in the bag (issues 1 and 2 are available now, 3 will be in shops later this summer). Its great fun being involved in the creative process with Ivan and Nic — aiming to get the best possible product on the shelves. If anything, the production values on the comic are unlike anything in shops today. The slightly oversized format, thick paper stock, and spot varnish on the cover make it really pop.

When I designed the logo I had a clear idea of how it would be applied, but as with anything rules are meant to be broken, or bent at least. The cover art for the first issue largely dictated how the logo would appear on the book, and the way I had designed it made it adaptable enough for later issues.
But when I received the art for the issue 2, I inadvertently started to change the logo when I was working on the cover design: I made it larger, created a new texture, cropped it differently and so on.

Instead of having a formulaic approach I made the call right then that each cover treatment should be different and ‘meld’ together with the art. So now we have 3 covers. And all 3 look different — with 3 being the richest in texture so far. Its an ongoing experiment to integrate the logo with the art while not losing the bold graphic element.

Ivan sent me the cover art for issue 4 the other day — another beautiful piece by Nic thats completely different from the current covers — and it looks like the logo will be going through yet another permutation.

Large versions of the covers at my Flickr account.