I was approached by Tinder Press to create the book cover illustration for Maggie O' Farrell's novel, Hamnet.

The brief was to reflect the importance of nature in the novel, and how it was interwoven into the lives of the characters. I was given a list of animals, plants and herbs that were important within the story to incorporate into the design. I was lucky enough to be able to reference the majority of plants and animals by taking sketching visits to Kew Gardens, along with being able to draw from my own herb garden.

After sketching out a series of ideas over a period of time, it was decided that the 'H' should form part of the design. I began to work with this, drawing variations on the theme until a final design was agreed.

I transfered the drawing to lino, and began the process of carving out and printing the design, sending updates to Tinder Press along the way.

The lino block was printed in black and white so that the book cover designer could select the final colour scheme for print; blue, red, white and gold foiling.

I also created a linoprint for the U.K. paperback edition, and for the Waterstones' special edition paperback (pictured below).