I’m Taking a Book Cover Design Class!

Hello! I am currently taking Larsson McSwain’s class “Cover Art Creation” at Warrior Art Camp. I’ll be posting an update of my homework every week as I go from concept to execution of my book cover re-design.

I’ve been wanting to start a portfolio of book cover designs and am excited to make my first project. Follow along as I create a book cover re-design for Osamu Dazai’s “No Longer Human”.

Thumbnail Sketches

A bunch of thumbnails during a brainstorm session. I wanted to portray the main character, Oba Yozo, being consumed by his past trauma. During this brainstorm, I kept in mind the already existing covers of “No Longer Human” and thought about how I wanted to differentiate my cover from them, as well as what aspects I wanted to keep. I love the abstract silhouette in the most recent modern cover and wanted to create my own interpretation.

I thought about different interpretations of distortion, through water, light, and shadow.

Rough Compositions

I made these rough photo composites on Photoshop based on the thumbnail sketches. The design is relatively simple- a somewhat abstract silhouetted bust with overlaid type. Layering various textures over the silhouette, I am going to eventually translate these images in graphite. I also started playing around with different type treatments, for funsies. Something I was thinking about while making these was the intentionality needed when designing a simple cover. It’s interesting how seemingly small changes affect the meaning and perception of the overall design.

Color Sketches

This round, I played around with various color treatments and started refining my image. I did 3 variations of color as well as 3 compositions of the bust in different sizes. Depending on the size of the bust, the author’s name placement would change. Although the type is only a placeholder for now, I chose to use the typeface Trade Gothic Next. I’m super torn between the blue and cream, in hindsight I think the maroon color is too low contrast. Difficult decisions!!