Book Cover project

This is a project in which we were to design a cover for the famous John Steinbeck novel, “Of Mice and Men”. The following image shows the finished product of my design.

I went about this task with the intent of creating a dramatic, dark tone, which many readers may find enticing; in addition to this, the dark tone reflects the aspects of the novel that were not apparent until later on in the story. This creates tension for the reader as they begin to read the book.

I used my own photography to create this, making use of a hand-drawn title and an original compositional idea. The hand and crushing imagery exists to represent Lennie’s (one of the main characters) unintentional murders that take place throughout the novel, all of which times correlate to his hands and the strength he cannot gauge himself.

I edited the photograph and scanned items using Photoshop CC, changing the amount of light in the photo as necessary, blending the title with the rest of the image. I removed the colour from the photo, leaving it in greyscale, which is a suited colour scheme for a book which has such a dark tone to it. I attempted to create a professional image while retaining a dramatic, and childlike (again reflecting Lennie) approach to the image.