These book covers (for Crime and Punishment and Lord of the Flies) use the settings of the novels as their primary motif. In both novels the setting is key to the morality. The structure of the covers is simple and traditional... a grid of thirds. The center rectangle on the front cover references inset illustrations. The underlying grid was defined after seeing the grid structure of classic Penguin books. So, in tribute to the great covers historically and currently published by Penguin, I branded my covers as Penguin. Wishful thinking, perhaps.
I wanted the covers to be something that would become increasingly interesting as the reader became familiar with the story and the object of the book. To this end, the center rectangle serves as an initial distraction for the reader. It is initially the central focus but as the reader spends more time with the book they will hopefully come to notice the more ominous figures obscured in the blurred portion of the cover and on the back cover. The imagery of the cover will also make more sense as the reader gains familiarity with the story. Looking at published covers for Lord of the Flies I found that they usually show a character's face, or a pig's head. I wanted to respond with the opposite, a place instead of an object. Covers for Crime and Punishment are similar in that they tend to focus on an illustration of Raskolnikov so I thought it appropriate that this cover should also focus mainly on the setting.
