Last week, we covered some of the different roles in self-publishing including: book shepherd, editors, interior designers, and cover designers.
In an interview with Knopf cover artist Peter Mendelsun, Kyle VanDehmert at Wired said this:
A truly great jacket is one that captures the book inside it in some fundamental and perhaps unforeseen way. As Mendelsund describes it, his job is “finding that unique textual detail that…can support the metaphoric weight of the entire book.” That, of course, requires actually reading a manuscript closely enough to A) determine the metaphoric weight of the book and B) find a handful of relevant details within it.
I was fortunate enough to find someone who does this, Tunisian artist and graphic designer Maiez Mehdi.
I contacted Maiez after seeing his work on the Internet. One of the things that amazed me was how he was able to find the perfect metaphoric image for my book despite our communication and cultural differences: English is his 3rd language (after French and Tunisian Arabic (Darija)) and French is my poor second.
I wanted to know how he came up with such an iconic image. Without further ado, here’s Maiez talking about his art, his inspirations, and designing a book cover.
NOTE: Thanks to my friend Kendra for helping me translate. I included the original French as well since this was a bilingual collaboration.
Question: How did you get started in art? (Comment avez-vous débuté dans l'art?)
Maiez Mehdi: When I was a child, I noticed my brother drew all the time, and I never had the courage to draw, other than filling in coloring book characters and giving them life. I loved the colors of life, the small details.
One day I fell in love with art and that’s when I started drawing.
I discovered a monochrome world quite different from color, mysterious and infinite. I found the works of the Middle Ages incredible.
I was completely fascinated and dazzled. I reproduced drawings day in and day out and every day discovered a world a little different from the one we live in today.
Maiez (French): Quand j’étais enfant j’observais mon frère dessinait tout le temps, et je n’ai jamais eux le courage de dessiné moi aussi apart coloré les personnages vide et leurs donné vie, j’adorais les couleurs la vie les petits détails.
Un jour je suis tombé amoureux du dessin et c’est la que j’ai commencé a dessiné,
J’ai découvert un monde monochrome tout a fait diffèrent des couleurs, mystérieux et infini, je trouvais les travaux du moyen âge incroyable.
J'étais totalement fascine éblouie, je reproduisais les tableaux et je découvre chaque jours une vie un monde diffèrent de ce lui dont en vie aujourd'hui.
Ensuite je me suis petit a petit rapproché du monde graphique moderne, le monde des images moderne, logo TV et les T shirts.
Q: What are your interests and what inspires you? (Quels sont vos intérêts et ce que vous inspire?)
Maiez: What interests me and inspires me at the same time today and in art in general are:
- Dreams
- The world of ancient art
- Shock
- Dualism (the philosophy of the mind)
- The dualism of man/animal
How do I take these themes and express them in a modern image?
I started writing down my dreams, details I read from books, I wanted to reproduce the workings (mechanism) of dreams, and not the images, I wanted to know how we can reproduce this mechanism in real life (reality). Since dreams are for the most part unforgettable, I could perhaps create unforgettable images. This would always interest me and I would always have work.
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Duality between animal and man - “La dualite animal/homme” |
Maiez (French): Ce qui m'intéresse et ce qui m’inspire en même temps aujourd'hui c’est l’art en général, les rêves, le cosmos l'histoire de l’art antique, le choc, le dualisme (philosophie de l'esprit), le dualisme homme/animal, tout ça comment je peut les reproduire dans une image modern?
J’ai commencé a noté mes rêves, les détails j’ai lu des livres, je voulais reproduire le mécanisme des rêves, et non pas les images, je voulais savoir comment peut on reproduire ce mécanisme dans la réalités, car les rêves sont la plupart inoubliable marquante, je pourais peut être crée des images inoubliable, j’y travail toujours.
Maiez: In these illustrations, I wanted to express my love of music and cinema in an illustration both spontaneous and abstract.
Maiez (French): A travers l’illustration aussi je voulais aussi exprimé mon amours envers la musique et le cinéma, une illustration spontané et abstraite.
Q: What do you love about Tunisia? (Qu'est-ce que vous aimez à propos de la Tunisie?)
Maiez: What I like about Tunisia is its natural beauty and its history: Carthage, Hannibal, Elyssa.
People are welcoming, very modest, and intelligent and it’s culture is a mixture of Europe and the Middle East. I love this cultural merger.
At the start of the revolution, I was very happy and I wanted to work to contribute to the art.
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“Arabe Spring” |
Maiez (French): Ce que j’aime en Tunisie, c’est sa beauté naturel son histoire, carthage, Hannibal, Elyssa. Les gens sont acceuillant et la plupart modeste, intelligent mais surtout c’est un pays très ouvert sur l’europe et sur sa culture, en bref j’aime ce fusionnement culturel. Au début de la révolution c’était la joie total et je voulais donné mon max pour amélioré l’art.
Q: How did the Arab Spring influence you? (Comment le printemps arabe vous influencer?)
Maiez: Unfortunately, the Arab Spring influenced me negatively because of some of the dogmatic religious views. This pushed me to critique shock art and Islam through my own works.
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Decapitation in Arabic (of art) - Decapitation en arabe (de l'art) |
Maiez (French): Mais malheureusement après le printemps arabe ma beaucoup influencé négativement mais c’est ce qui ma poussé encore plus pour critiqué certain point religieux dogmatique, tel que le choc art et islam.
Maiez: I criticized through popular paintings the suffering of the art in Tunisia caused by the extreme radicalism of the religious towards the art.
The anger and cries of the characters expresses the emotion while the choice of color metamorphosis and geometric shape breaks the natural logic of our normal vision.
Because everyone knows these popular paintings, everyone is shocked when they see something different.
It’s also an opportunity to work on my preferred themes.
Maiez (French): Mais aussi j’ai critiqué a travers les peintures populaires pour exprimé la souffrance de l’art en Tunisie causé par cette radicalité extrême des religieux envers l'art, a travers bien sur la colère et le crie des personnages qui expriment parfaitement cette états, tout en gardant bien sur ma touche personnel tel que le choix des couleurs la métamorphose et les forme géométrique qui casse la logique naturel de notre vision habituel, car tout le monde connaît ces tableaux populaire, donc tout le monde sera choqué en les voyants différemment. Donc c’est l’occasion aussi de travailler sur mes thèmes préférer.
Q: What is most important to you when designing a book cover? Quel est le plus important pour vous lors de la conception d'une couverture de livre?
Maiez: Most important for me is the feeling and the message. Every person must feel the work on the cover. It's an invitation to read the book, a kind of aesthetic provocation with a well-defined message.
Maiez (French): Le plus important pour moi, ce est le sentiment, et le message pour moi, que chaque personne doit se sentir le travail sur la couverture, ce est une sorte d'invitation à lire le livre une sorte de provocation esthétique avec des messages bien définis.
Q: How did you come up with the cover image for the book? (Comment avez-vous avec l'image de couverture pour le livre?)
Maiez: I do not know how to describe the book honestly. I thought about many things: freedom, the Statue of Liberty, nature. I wanted the cover to show a face that symbolized the passage of time and evolution, change. I thought about a gentle wind and horizontal stripes and shades of colors that recalled the American flag flying.
Maiez (French): Je ne sais pas comment décrire l'oeuvre honnêtement, j'ai pensé a des tas de choses en même temps tel que la liberté, la femme (statue de la liberté), la nature, je voulais marqué le livre par un visage par une empreinte aussi, symbolisant l’écoulement du temps et l’évolution, le changement, le passage d’un vent doux, les bandes horizontales et les nuance de couleurs qui font rappel au drapeaux américain flottant.
A quick embarrassing story about our collaboration
When I initially wrote Maiez about the book, he wanted to know what it was about and any ideas I had for the cover. We set up a Skype call and talked about democracy and peaceful change and my interest in helping people find common ground and work together. In terms of a theme, I suggested:
The theme could be: Revolution of the mind, revolution de l'esprit (?), or metaphors for the mind (métaphores de l'esprit).
I said one thought could be a picture of a piece of technology that people once used as a metaphor for the mind, like the Jacquard loom.
These were just suggestions though. I made sure to emphasize I was completely open to ideas.
He read the first chapter of the book and what he came back with was much, much better than anything I had suggested. To the point that I'm almost embarrassed now to be talking about my ideas. This is because artists tend to think visually.
This is why I feel it's so important in the collaboration to establish the freedom for an artist to do what he or she does best: find that image that represents the metaphoric weight of the book. Talk about what the book is about, maybe make some suggestions, but leave enough freedom for the artist's expression.
If you find an artist like Maiez, the artist will likely come back with something much better than anything you had dreamed possible.
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If you are interested in Maiez's work, more can be found at his website.
Next week, George Strejcek is on deck to talk about self-publishing a memoir and his book 91 Bravo: A Memoir of the Second Korean War.
What have you experienced working with artists? Or are you an artist? Do you have any questions for Maiez about art or Tunisia or anything else?
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