The award-winning novel ‘One Year One Night’ by SL Roman features an eye-catching cover.

It was designed by artist David Malcolm who found a Getty image of Annie, the heroine of the young adult novel.

The illustration has a sixties feel in the style of pop art luminary Roy Lichtenstein which fits as the story begins in 1960. Although Annie’s hairdo is actually a Victory roll, big in the 1940’s.

David, also researched into pictures of soldiers online and found a photo of a soldier in the Vancouver Archives in Vancouver, Canada. That pic became Remy, Annie’s first love.

The portrayal of the original unlucky boy on the cover, top left, is perhaps the most poignant of all.

As the final deadline approached before the paperback publication, writers Sarah Onions and Laura Meloni desperately searched their archives for a black and white photo of Ken Carter taken with his mother near Brighton around 1939.

They had no luck but Laura had kept a pic of her husband Paul who fitted the bill and was wearing the traditional blazer and cap sported by all British schoolboys at the time.

David had found a suitable photo in the Imperial War Museum’s photo archive but one which needed editing, something the Museum does not allow.

Instead the graduate of the prestigious Chelsea school of art in did a light manipulation of Laura’s photo of her husband, adding an identity tag and changing Paul’s expression to reflect the character’s uncertain situation.

So Paul, who had kept the writers going with coffee made it onto the front of the hardback edition just being published in America and Canada – and also worldwide including digital sales.

Strangely when British artist Kevin Hopgood illustrated the U.S. edition – the unlucky boy Ben looked just like the original photo which Kevin had never seen – small and blonde with a spiky haircut.

David Malcolm, currently Director of DHMV Design Ltd, worked as a designer and design manager/consultant/art director with central and local government, in private sector, design and advertising and as a freelance designer.

One Year One Night can be bought in the U.S.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/one-year-one-night-2nd-edition-s-l-roman/21206468?ean=9781947159815

Or – in the U.K. at Amazon.co.uk

It’s also on sale in the Regency Bookshop in Surbiton in London, U.K.