The Secret is Out!

Recently I’ve begun revamping the PsyCop series ebooks to give the covers a more cohesive look, and to clean up some of the older ebooks to make sure they work well across various devices. The Secrets ebook was showing its age. It came out in 2007 before many devices in use today even existed, and its cover art pre-dated the use of the Vic model, so I was eager to freshen it up.

The scene I chose to showcase for the new cover art was the moment where Vic decides he’s going to step outside of his comfort zone to help the victim. He’ll be sorry later, but right now he’s working himself up to gagging down a Jack and Coke. Here’s an insider look at the making of the can.

My stock art featured a white can, so all I’d need to do is make it look like a Coke.


Obviously I couldn’t use Coke’s trademark logo without permission, but they’re such a fixture that any red can will read as a Coke. I researched various Coke labels (and there are lots and lots of them) but the label that caught my eye was this graphic design exercise by a student on the DeviantArt.com site. I figured I should do something like that…but not exactly that. Something in the spirit of this exercise (which he did a fantastic job with.)

My plan was to build my label in Adobe Illustrator with vector tools, pull it into Photoshop, use the 3-D engine to wrap it around a cylinder, then composite the cylinder into the design.

Here's my initial label design, a lot simpler, but I knew there'd be type overlaying the can so it really didn't need to be anywhere near as fancy. Pulling it into 3-D would provide highlights and shadows so it's fine that it's so flat.

Since I seldom use 3-D, it was clunky and frustrating to figure out where elements on my illustrated label were going to land. (see the initial attempt in the SIDEBAR) I realized that I actually didn’t need something this elaborate because only the top corner would show anyway, so I scrapped the illustrator vector label (which I couldn't move or edit easily within Photoshop) and built a quick label directly in Photoshop with a nutrition panel and a couple of white sparkle brushes over a red background, and wrapped that around my cylinder instead.

There’s a frosted kind of look to the reflectivity of the can. I would’ve preferred a more metallic sheen—but even after playing with the reflective qualities for quite a while I couldn’t quite make that sheen I was envisioning happen. (I even made the architectural background reflect in the can…though you can only see it toward the bottom, which won’t show.) Again, I reminded myself that ONLY THE TOP CORNER OF THE CAN will show, and I carried on with what I had.

So here’s the can label placed in the composition. Since it’s thrust into the foreground, I’ve blurred it slightly to mimic realistic depth of field. (Yet another reason why it’s unnecessary to make sure the actual room is reflecting in the frosted surface of the can that’s not even showing!)

And finally, because it’s pleasing to the eye to make sure the colors in a composition don’t appear only in a single isolated spot, I selected a dark red from the can with the eyedropper tool and painted a textured vignette that carries the color through the piece and pulls the composition together. (It looks like I also pulled that red into gradient on the Secrets lettering). It pops because red and green are opposites on the color wheel.


The PsyCop series ebook facelift project is now complete through book 4. If you’re curious about updating the files from your original ebook editions, find more info at JCP Books. I'm not planning to update paperback editions due to the nature of the paperback production process.