Georgian Book Cover Competition Winner Revealed

With Blood Omen 3: Fulfilment being translated into Georgian ready for a Halloween 2016 release, I got my fans on board to design the cover for it. I got around 50 entries. I knew my top choice as soon as I saw it- Natalia Nozadze's Dea & Snake, so well symbolizing the sentiment of the 3rd book: her facing her fears (she has a phobia of snakes), of Apophis (symbolized by the snake) trapping and squeezing the life out of her and of her strength as she deals with it- no panic, just calm logic; a strong character who tries to think her way out rather than scream and cry.

The runner-up cover, chosen by a fan vote, showed Dea and Ana in a face-off, well designed and also showing that the designer had an idea about the story and characters. However, good as it was, the Dea-Ana fight is not central to Book 3 (though it does feature and will continue into Book 4).

I went to Natalia's school yesterday to give her her prizes- a T-shirt, poster, pen and sticker, all with the Blood Omen logo, plus some other cool vampire goodies. Nina Kvibliani, the runner-up, also got a bag of vampire treats to say thank you for joining in.

It meant a lot to get so much interest from young designers, and to see so many people come out on vote day to choose their favourite! 

The winning design

The Fan Favourite 

Me and Natalia in her new T-shirt 

Now you may have noticed that Natalia's cover is hand-drawn and doesn't quite fit the style of the previous two Georgian version Books 1&2. What I was looking for in the competition was not a completed cover (though quite a few entrants gave it a try!) but the symbol, or image, to use to sum up the idea of the 3rd part. Natalia found that image but I decided to turn to the designer of my second favourite cover (below) to work some computer magic on Natalia's sketch to bring it in line with the first two of the Georgian collection. As co-designer, Beqa Giorgadze will also have his name on the cover beside Natalia's. I can't wait to see the results of his work...

Beqa Giogadze's first entry- showing Stuart and Santi in a face-off, it was my first choice until Natalia's Dea&Snake came along