Talk of AI has driven endless design dialogues since ChatGPT debuted in 2022, and this month, it takes center stage in two new books. Below, Joanne O’Neill details her work on one of those, Bryan VanDyke’s novel In Our Likeness—and the rest of our favorite covers that were revealed or published in September follow!
Official description:
The wonders and chaos of AI converge in a powerful and thrilling novel about rewriting history, identity, love, and what it means to be human.
Graham Gooding is a leader at a tech startup when his brilliant coworker—and work crush—Nessie Locke asks for help testing a new algorithm. Graham jumps at the chance to impress her and to improve his floundering personal life. He soon discovers that the algo is more powerful than Nessie—or anyone—realizes. It was built to detect lies on the internet, but when Graham makes a small edit to Nessie’s online profile, hoping to see if the program will catch the lie, Nessie changes in real life. The algo can alter the real world. Now, so can Graham.
No one knows what Graham has done, except his boss, enigmatic tech guru David Warwick. Graham is racked with guilt, but Warwick thrills to the possibilities of what they can do next. This promises to be the innovation that will make Warwick a household name. Drawn by the power of the algo but terrified by its potential for chaos, Graham must decide what to do and whom to trust in a world where one true reality no longer exists.
As love, trust, memories and what it means to be human begin to slip away, Graham and Nessie work together to restore the past—before it’s lost to the anarchy of a world without truth.
What was the brief for this project?
The brief called for a design that reflects the emotional core of the story while subtly hinting at the AI component—perhaps by depicting something that is altered or disappearing.
How did you arrive at the final design, and what’s going on within it?
We had been working with the idea of clouds from the beginning, but when art director Tree Abraham suggested a mirror, I immediately knew what she was trying to get at—the digitally altered self, and our reflection being distorted in ways we can’t detect. The pink bleeding inside and outside symbolizes the blurring line between the real and the artificial, seeping into one another. The sky evokes a sense of liminal space and hints at the limits of human understanding—or perhaps the boundlessness of AI. We worked on the pixelation quite a bit, making sure the pixels were distinct to avoid the image appearing blurry.
Where did you source the cloud background?
In the story, oil paintings are used as training data for the algorithm. I loved the contrast between the hand-painted (human) sky and the distorted (artificial) reflection. Ironically, the “painting” on the cover is a digital rendering of an oil painting.
How did you select the type treatment?
We experimented with several pixelated font variations, but they felt too complex and hard to render effectively. This typeface strikes a balance: hard edges that hint at something futuristic, while its soft curves keep it readable.
What other comps did you explore before arriving at the final design?
I initially explored imagery based on one of the main character’s tattoos, which include an olive tree, an owl in flight, a snake, a woman in armor, and a single cloud with a shaft of light. In the story, these tattoos disappear in the real world as they are erased inside the algorithm, and they recur throughout the narrative. However, these images ultimately felt too specific. We also explored glitching skylines and imagery representing human knowledge.
What overall mood were you hoping to strike in the final cover?
I wanted to convey the feeling of being trapped in an artificial world, but with a glimmer of hope for escape—something that feels increasingly relevant today (!).
