Hades as Art Director

Nothing has pleased me more than playing the Lord of the Underworld.

 

Curious City was once again invited by Mary Anne Lloyd to play Art Director for her class of Illustration majors at Maine College of Art.  I was to assign a real world project and award a contract to an artist.  Instead of real world, I went Underworld.

 

Sirenz, a series by Natalie Zaman and Charlotte Bernnardo, features modern day NYC girls falling and and out of contracts with himself, the Greek God, Hades.  Curious City previously built a blog for the series in which the characters of the book chat about fashion and other godly affairs.  Hades often comments on posts or makes uninvited posts of his own there.

 

With Sirenz (Bk1) and Sirenz: Back in Fashion (Bk2) in stores, Natalie Zaman and Charlotte Bernnardo were looking ahead to Sirenz: Myth Appropriated (Bk3) and the possibility of releasing it themselves as an e-book.  Would they need a cover?  Oh, yes they very well might.  We had an assignment!

 

After a discussion of Curious City’s work, the growth of young adult fiction, and a review of current young adult covers, I assigned a cover design to the Illustration majors at Maine College of Art.  Here is some of their brilliant sketch work and finals.

 

Artist Daelyne Bell

Artist Andrea Croak

Artist Michelle Cooney 

Artist Olivia Godburn

Artist Devon Johnson

Artist Gaella Materne

Artist Peter Rimkunas

Artist Hannah Rosengren

Artist Noreen Torelli

 

How to choose the best cover?? 

 

Well, who likes humans in competition with one another better than the Greek Gods?  At this point in the project, we asked Hades to step in and strut his stuff on the Sirenz blog. (How delicious to write in the voice of the Lord of the Underworld.) Using PollDaddy, we collected votes from readers all over the country.

 

The “People’s Choice” was a THREE-way tie between illustrators Devon Johnson, Hannah Rosengren, and Noreen Torelli.  Hades also took his godly prerogative and granted a “Hades Choice” to Peter Rimkunas.

 

Sirenz: Myth Appropriated may take a different publication path, so you may not be seeing these covers dressing up our Greek pantheon of books, but each of the four illustrators is taking home a share of the contract money.

We hope you explore all of the cover sketches here and see the fabulous avatars the illustrators created for the Sirenz site’s here.  Curious City also hopes to see more of the work of these illustrators gracing the book world soon.  Art Directors take notice!