The Well

R. Chapman Wesley · Thriller / adventure

Recognition for the book

  • 2024 American Fiction Awards — Winner, Adventure Fiction
  • 2024 American Fiction Awards — Finalist, General Thriller
  • 2024 International Book Awards — Finalist, Visionary Fiction
Genre
Thriller / adventure
Publisher
High Top Publishing
Formats shown
Front cover, Dust jacket, Hardcover wrap, Translated edition
Deliverables
Front cover, Full dust jacket with flaps, Hardcover wrap, Portuguese-language edition, Endorsement and author layout, Publisher and barcode areas
Design work
Cover concept, Photographic compositing, Typography, Long-form back-cover layout, Print production
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Full Dust Jacket

Complete dust jacket with flaps: back flap, back cover, spine, front cover and front flap.

Hardcover Wrap

Hardcover wrap: back cover, spine and front cover.

Translated Edition

Portuguese-language edition full cover, titled A Fonte.

Design approach

Concept

A thriller that moves from a bioterrorism lab to the Amazon needed one image that could hold a global threat without becoming literal. The burning planet, branded with the character from the legend at the centre of the story, works at poster size and still reads as a burning earth in a thumbnail.

Back cover

The back is unusually dense — eight endorsements, an author photograph and biography, a publisher mark, the barcode and a priced description panel. Each of those got its own measure and a fixed hierarchy so the type stays readable at print size.

Typography and print surface

The night sky runs unbroken across the entire surface, with the star field kept quiet behind the text and the barcode placed on a clear field. The title face repeats down the spine, so the printed object holds together as one piece of typography.

An ongoing project over several years: the original front cover, a full dust jacket, a hardcover wrap and a Portuguese-language edition, all developed from the same visual identity.