This school project was about taking an existing book and creating a new book cover for it. I read my chosen book, In The After and took notes on all of the themes and characters. This is a dystopian YA novel, so a lot of the imagery is very dark and haunting.
Visual Research
Instead of a moodboard, I collected book covers of a similar narrative and genre to get inspiration for what kind of cover I wanted to go for.
Sketches
All my cover sketches were based on some sort of imagery contained in the novel, from a scene that happened to a repetitive symbol.
Drafts
I took the 4 best cover sketches and made digital drafts out of them. The left 2 I used photography as the main imagery. There are humanoid monsters in this book, which I attempted to represent in the bottom left. You must be silent at all times to survive these creatures, which is what is being represented in the top left. The top right represents claw marks left by the creatures, and the bottom right necklace is an object of significance.
I took the two strongest digital drafts and developed them further, adding the dust jacket flaps and the actual information that would go on them. The version with the silencing woman had potential, but it ended up feeling too dark overall, and I wasn’t sure how to extend the image or what else it needed. That’s when I decided to move forward with the metal image instead. It tells a compelling story with very little. The inverted spine was also a happy accident. I masked it by hitting the wrong button, but I liked the effect and kept it.
Final
Most of the final edits were done on the type to help with legibility. I made all of the body copy an orange hue and put a dark background behind it in order to create a high contrast. I tried to keep it realistic, using the actual barcode and publisher logo on the cover. The author's photo and bio were also taken from the real book.
