There are a lot of books on this subject — and many appear somewhat dated or 'home-grown'. One reason could be the lack of good stock photography showing alternate energy sources — the shots are usually straight-forward or somewhat technical. Neither do they portray wind, energy and solar power all at once, so multiple shots would be necessary to show all three.

In designing first comps, I hoped to position this title as the most up-to-date guide with a contemporary treatment that would be really eye-catching on the bookshelves.

I used red and orange to convey the sense of energy and power, and looked for a window frame shot that would add interest to the insets and reinforce the 'home' element of the title.

While making a choice between using either 'wind'/'water'/'solar' in the insets, or wind generators/solar panels/hydro generators, it became apparent there would be difficulties doing either. Showing 'wind' isn't easy; neither is finding a micro-hydro generator of the type used for residential housing, since most are submerged.

The stronger option was to show the power sources and after much searching I compiled a set (including micro-hydro) that were similar in detail. All included a strong blue that provided good contrast against the red background. To convey the technical guide aspect, I created diagram-style graphics representing wind, solar and water elements.

The publishers liked the fresh approach and presented it to the author. His reaction was very negative. He didn't feel comfortable with a departure from the usual style in this genre. The design was quite different from covers for his other books and he wasn't confident the power units in the insets would be understood.

I was asked to design something in a more traditional direction and took a look at the author's other titles. I had reserved the house with solar panel shot from earlier searches and began work on new comps. The wind generator pointing to the sub-title was added digitally from another shot.

The final design satisfied the author although he did ask for one more change: using serif type instead of sans for the title and sub-title. An alternate comp showed the house image was too detailed and busy for serif type to work, so the final cover used sans.