RED HEN PRESS
RED HEN PRESS
September 2024 - Present
I’ve been interning with Red Hen Press, a small independent publishing company in Pasadena designing and illustrating original book covers for some of their upcoming book releases. These book covers were all conceptualized by me and were revised to varying degrees after receiving feedback from both the editorial team and the authors themselves.
They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but I hope you enjoy these book covers :)
PANDORA’s KITCHen
Poems by Ron Koertge, Published by Red Hen Press (2025)
Pandora’s Kitchen is a modern book of poetry that uses humor and pop culture references to examine and dissect thought-provoking topics. The idea of poetry as an art form often brings with it ideas of intellectualism, classical literature, and the epic tales of Greek Mythology, so with this cover design I wanted to modernize that idea, mirroring the very thing the poems in the book do so well.
When I examined the tone of the writing and considered an artistic way to represent the way they consistently twisted the reader’s preconceived notions about poetry, I was instantly inspired by American Pop Art in the 1960s. The Pop Art movement was defined by a previously unheard of engagement and use of pop culture in fine art, an ideology that fit perfectly with this tongue in cheek style of poetry. Using imagery from the traditional Greek myth of Pandora and combining it with classic pop art techniques, I illustrated a variety of colorful book cover comps that were perfectly harmonious with the poems and the author’s vision for his work.
Final chosen cover design