For this project, we had to choose our favorite book or a book we had read recently and will redesign the cover for that book. Taking into account themes, imagery, characters, objects, events, time and setting, feeling, and tone we had to create sketches for our book covers. Then we each created a board on Pinterest with some images for inspirations for our designs. The book cover I redesigned was Coraline, by Neil Gaiman. For some reason, I always really liked the book in middle school, despite it’s rather dark and twisty characters. In case you aren’t familiar with the story, you can read my mini summary below.

 

When Coraline Jones moves to an old apartment, she feels neglected by her parents. Not to mention the weird neighbors can never pronounce her name right. One day she finds a hidden door with a bricked up passage. In the middle of the night, she crosses through the tunnel to find a parallel world where everything is just the same as at home, but better. Oh, and everyone has buttons for eyes. But when Coraline discovers her parallel paradise is really a dangerous trap, Coraline has to save herself and her parents from the Other Mother in the secret world. 

 

After working through several ideas for the cover, I used Adobe Illustrator to create an image of Coraline watching her button eyed Other Mother cooking in the kitchen. Coraline is a children’s book, but because it has eerie undertone, I decided to add a spooky silhouette behind Coraline’s Other Mother to represent her evil alter ego.