The concept for this illustration centered around an inconvenient fact about hackers: most of them are teenagers. And I needed to create a visual metaphor that represented this age group. After some discussion, we arrived at “gaming”.

My latest cover illustration utilizes a three-panel layout (triptych) that it will foldout from the cover of the printed report.

Why a triptych? In a word: space. One of the challenges I have been trying to solve is how to visually portray the entire “attack” process from beginning to end—The attacker, the attack (metaphor), and the victim. Fitting this three-step process onto a single 8.5” x 11” cover is next to impossible without creating an image that is so visually overwhelming that it loses all cohesion. I suggested creating a triptych as a possible solution to solve this problem and, to my pleasant surprise, was given the go ahead. Not only would it be completely different from anything I had previously done, but it also provides more flexibility in how the artwork gets used.

The individual 8.5” x 11” panels are shown below—each panel works as self-contained piece of art—three covers in one.