Book Cover for Congratulations You’re Human by Sigga Soffía Níelsdóttir
Reykjavík - 31 October 2025:
Huldunótur is pleased to announce the design of the cover for Congratulations, You’re Human, the newly translated work by multidisciplinary Icelandic artist Sigga Soffía Níelsdóttir.To begin the process, Sigga Soffía shared an envelope filled with personal ephemera from her year of fighting cancer while pregnant: hospital wristbands, pressed flowers, Polaroids, and photographs taken from her hospital bed. The materials offered an intimate window into the emotional world of the book, which navigates fear, exhaustion, dark humor, and the strange beauty of surviving. Hendrix approached the project with a sense of responsibility and care for the deeply personal nature of the content.
One hospital photograph became the conceptual foundation for the final cover. In it, Sigga Soffía lies in bed in a hospital gown, her arm raised as if mid-gesture. The moment carried a quiet humor and resilience; Hendrix immediately imagined the gesture as a kind of toast to the absurdity of illness. This interplay of fragility, strength, and wit shaped the visual direction.
Hendrix scanned the ephemera and began creating collages by hand—fast and intuitive explorations that generated the initial compositions. Additional digital variations were developed at the author’s request, one of which became the back cover. Yet the team consistently returned to the original composition, which ultimately aligned with the publisher’s vision.
In the final stages, the champagne flute imagined in the earliest drafts was replaced with a glass of milk out of respect for the cancer society—a shift that preserved the tone of the image while adding a slightly surreal, yet fitting, quality. Various Polaroids were tested to match the emotional register of the book, and a whimsical black rabbit—referenced in the stage adaptation—was incorporated to balance gravity with lightness.
“The hardest part was tone,” said Hendrix. “The cover had to feel hopeful and a little punchy—clever enough to signal humor, but without slipping into irony. We wanted something delicate but not fragile. Something strong.”
The result is a cover that honors both the vulnerability and resilience at the heart of the book, reflecting Sigga Soffía’s multidisciplinary spirit—dancer, choreographer, poet, playwright, fireworks designer, and founder of Eldblóm Elixir.
Designing the cover became, in spirit, a toast—raised not with champagne, but with a glass of milk—to the courage, absurdity, and endurance of being human.
- hendrix@invisiblenotes.com