by Chloe Bonfield

In 2022 Chloe Bonfield created a cover for Jennifer Lee Tsai’s La Mystérique and we thought you might be interested to read how the image was made. Here, Chloe describes the process and the technology.

A little collaboration with Miro (please don’t sue me).

Whilst working on a research project, myself and a collaborator who lives in Germany have been using Miro boards. Our brains twist and turn and create circuitous flows that are now represented via our insane Miro board.

Miro is a sort of mind mapping tool in browser software that is used to visually explore ideas. I often use it when I teach online. It can be useful or the complete opposite. When the connections are too entangled it can become chaotic and readable only by the author. One thing that is consistent, however, is that it creates the most beautiful mystical diagrams. Maybe all bureaucratic tools do this.

We are cybernetic creatures, our brains and bodies are caught in and flow through machines. This is also beautiful. Jennifer’s poetry is a constellation of souls and places, and little pinpoints of research show themselves. Kristeva shows up in a little blaze then is gone.

I used Miro to arrange screenshots of all of the poems from La Mystérique into a spiral around the title. I used circle diagrams to represent each of these and then finally connected them using the arrow tool. I drew by hand over the diagram to seal the mystical symbolic nature in. To alchemise it, now complete with little symbols for each text. So the mystical diagram is complete. It hangs in the air - like stars - but it is also tied to processes and human cybernetics that go beyond the books contents.

At Guillemot Press we printed the cover art on Stardream Diamond and added sparkly Stardream Sapphire endpapers to echo the shimmery cover blues.