THE SECRET HISTORY
This project is a book cover re-design for my favorite book, The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I was inspired to tackle this particular project because of my love for this book and book cover design as a whole, but also because the current cover of this book is so unappealing that I almost didn't buy it, although I'm glad I did.
As an avid reader, I always love when after I've read a book the cover takes on a whole new meaning like I've unlocked the door that held the secrets to the design. I incorporated symbols and imagery important to the book's narrative in my final designs but abstracted everything to keep the designs minimal and clean.
Created in Adobe Illustrator + Adobe Photoshop + Procreate
Some symbols that are significant to the story that I featured in the design are the ferns, mushrooms, deer antlers, and the rabbit. The novel essentially revolves around five students studying the classics who end up murdering their friend whose nickname is Bunny–thus the dead rabbit with five arrows impaling the body–one for each of his friends. They murder Bunny by pushing him off a cliff after attempting to poison him with mushrooms unsuccessfully.
DIGITAL SKETCHES
Because of my extreme familiarity with the story (I’ve read this book 7+ times), I went into this project with a pretty clear vision. Typically I prefer to sketch physically but I did these sketches in Procreate so I could start blocking out the colors as soon as possible because I knew that was going to be a key element of my designs.
Each of these preliminary design ideas focused on imagery that is important to the story but seems unassuming if you haven't read the book. However, I ended up stripping down these designs and making them more minimal and streamlined for the final product.
