Jane Austen Cover Redesign
The goal of this project was to create three cohesive, polished book covers that communicate themes and tones within some of Jane Austen’s works without spoiling the plots for a potential reader. I also wanted to create unique covers that would attract old fans of Jane Austen and new readers who might not have considered reading her books before.
To create this project I first did a lot of research. I read or reread sections of Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma. Afterwards I researched fashion trends of the era through portraits and fashion sketches. I was also able to interview a fellow student who had extensive knowledge on regency era clothing and hairstyles. Once I had gathered all the information I moved on to sketching. The first cover design iterations did not convey my vision, so I restarted by sketching organic shapes to help conceptualize layout. After picking layouts I liked I created rough sketches of covers. After settling on a layout for each book, I moved into the digital realm. I utilized adobe illustrator to trace and modify my sketches.
After tracing I moved on to coloring in Photoshop. To attract my audience, I used cohesive bright colors that would attract the eyes and were designed to look like a set. For each book I picked a single color and created a color palette of various shades of that color. For example, in Persuasion I picked various shades of blue to the sorrow and longing of the main characters and to represent the sea; where the majority of the book takes place.
Lastly, I picked fonts and arranged text to create the final layout in Indesign. I chose CoFo Glassier for titles and Volina for Jane Austen’s name.