Book Cover Design
Year
2022
This is a personal project based on Sweet Bean Paste, a novel by Durian Sukegawa and translated by Alison Watts. The book is published by Oneworld Publications.
I created the front and back cover design for the novel, Sweet Bean Paste.
Project Break Down
The first thing I did was put together a brief outlining exactly what the client is asking for.
I also created a mood board that shows covers of other literary fiction books, most also being translations. This gave me an idea of market demand and current trends. After all, books are often judged by their covers!
I created 3 completely different possible designs. Since I've read the book, I pulled imagery that I believe to be significant without giving anything away.
I wanted to provide colour roughs for each because I had a clear vision in mind, which influenced the images themselves. For example, for the first design, I wanted to make sure the pot was copper. For the second design, I wanted to make sure that a sky blue and cherry blossom pink were the colours behind the dorayaki. Finally, for the third design, it was important that the bird be yellow.
The client decided to move forward with the third design. I immediately knew that I wanted to include a dorayaki illustration as a spot on the back cover. I liked the idea of maintaining continuity by keeping the colour and texture from the front cover on the back. Of course, I also had to add a few floating cherry blossom petals as well.
