Hi Jessica,
You chose images that tell a story, that lead the viewer in like a detective trying to solve a mystery. I'm viewing your images through the lens of a designer given the task of designing your book cover from these inspirational images. The second image, of a map with little iconic images of logs and petrochemicals (I think), reminds me of the RSA Animate series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
If say, you're book was chosen by a press that gives you limited pre-made patterns and colours to work with, what shapes and colours might you glean from your chosen images, or to back to your research to images taht don't necessarily tell a story but symbolise and summarise the aspect of your research project?
Have a look at the Pivot books by Palgrave Macmillan for their existing book covers to see what I mean: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/campaigns/palgrave-pivot? While shapes come from the middle illustrative image, what about colour? Two of your images show cars. Are cars really important in your project or is the location and the geographic spaces that your images describe. You also chose images that do not contain people. You might want to look at Laura Watt's book The Orkney Sagas, her photographs in the book do not show people at all, and that was purposeful, but there are illustrations. You can read a review of the book here on Backchannels, the 4S Blog: https://www.4sonline.org/blog/post/why_feminist_figurations_matter_in_energy_futures
If say you were publishing for MIT Press, what short 2-3 lines of text might you give to a designer given the commission of your book cover? What typographic style would you want, what colours might complement the text and imagery? How might they work together? Would collecting project/research imagery as a moodboard help you in the future were you to be heading to publish this research as a book?
