Book Jacket Project

(Adobe InDesign)

Prompt: Design two book covers. One fiction, one a non-fiction autobiography. Include a synopsis, publisher logos, a bar code, blurbs, the price, and the author 's name and bio.

For the fiction book jacket, I was inspired by the writings of John Green. His covers are not similar to each other, but each one visually hints at the narrative that the adolescent novel contains. I researched young adult novels, looking for trends and clichés. I happened to find a wonderful photo of someone’s insect collection organized in geometric rows all pointing inward. It reminded me of what anxiety feels like. I determined to design a cover for a book about teenage misperception of how people view them. I used forced justification and scribble motifs to enhance the feeling of tension. I also used text rotated at an angle to give a feel of instability. Originally, orange was chosen as the background color because it matched the color of the beetles. However, yellow was used because it was less intense. The hue was also reminiscent of a school bus. 

For the non-fiction autobiography, I wanted to use the luminosity of stained-glass windows to describe a soul. I reflected on my childhood memories as a struggling perfectionist. The colorful narrow angled openings in the black background describe the narrow path to perfection. Tension and harmony were simultaneously created with implied lines in the blocks of text. The image is an illustration of me attempting to put my contacts in; a very difficult task for the first try. The book is about learning how to allow yourself to fail on things that are hard on the first try.