Here’s a little insight into how we create an ‘Artist’ book. Initially when I put a book together, I try and give the artist a breakdown of each possible page’s text, even knowing that it will change, Gary made that into a sketch book where he breaks down images that we can talk about in terms of rhythm and pacing, also, most importantly, as a reading experience. Each page turn, the reader, who has just read the previous page, subconsciously takes in the new image before reading and then relates that image to what they are reading. This creates our sense of how the illustrations can enhance the reading experience.
Here’s an example of a simple idea that changed the mood of the illustration. We wanted Mycroft’s description of Empire to have a sense of:
‘ ‘‘You know, if I were to live, the British Empire might last another thousand years, bringing peace and improvement to the world.’’
In the past, especially when I was a boy, whenever I heard Mycroft make a grandiose pronouncement like that I would say something to bait him. But not now, not on his death-bed. And also I was certain that he was not speaking of the Empire as it was, a flawed and fallible construct of flawed and fallible people, but of a British Empire that existed only in his head, a glorious force for civilisation and universal prosperity.’
Gary’s first image that captured the symbolism of Mycroft’s dream of Empire had a sense of realism about it, I wanted it to be a lot more symbolic, showing, not only Mycroft’s optimistic view but the end of Empire and the wars that Sherlock later observes: ‘we watched those poor heroic boys sent to the trenches of Flanders to die, all these things confirmed me in my opinions. I was not doing the right thing. I was doing the only thing.’ And the small change of design captured that perfectly I feel.
