Portsmouth Uni: 'Line and Colour' (2010)

For the project we had to pick a book from any one of the many Penguin Classics range and design our own book covers for our chosen book. Initially I was torn between choosing 'Frankenstein' or 'Dante's Inferno', however I had already read Frankenstein and owned a copy of it so I chose to base my cover on Frankenstein. I began to research the book and various illustrations of Frankenstein as well as his monster (Frankenstein is not the monster, but its creator).

I wanted to quickly try out a few techniques to show his facial expression as I think thats where all the pain and emotion of the monster is shown.

Classic representation.

Without a doubt, the main focal point of the story has become that of the monter rather than his ceator. Its a story about how the monster reacts to the real world and his efforts to find his way in life. After my initial research I started doing a couple of my own drawings trying to get across the anguish and inner thoughts of the monster.

The idea behind this was basically to show the split identity of the monster. His appearance provokes fear and horror, whereas his personality is that of a kind and gentle being just looking for acceptance.

Showing the monster as a lonely guy who just wants to be loved.

I found this image on the front cover of one of the editions of the book. I liked how the hand was reaching out, as though in hopes of finding someone to hand on to.

I decided to look further into arms and hands as its a really interesting way to get across this idea of helplessness and being in search of something else. Being a Frankenstein cover, the theme of creation is an obvious focal point so I started to combine this with my focus on arms.

I took a picture of my friend putting on a glove so that I could get a rough image of what it would look like to put on skin. Very cool effect I think.

I wanted to move away from arms and hands and start focusing more on the monster itself and the definition of what a monster actually is.

'I am not an animal'

The eyes started to become my focus from here, a lot can be said about a person and their emotions through their eyes.

The idea of an eye peering through shattered glass really appealed to me, reflecting the deformed monsters appearance.

Wasn't much of a fan of these images, the emotions I wanted to get across just dont work as well I had thought they would. So I went back and revisited the arms and hands idea while still keeping with the broken and tormeted soul. For inspiration I picked out some quotes from the book and matched them with an image.

'I am miserable, and they shall share my wretchedness'

'I am the architect of my own destruction' (Prince of persia)

I really liked the image of the figure scratching at the wall, I think it got across the pain and torment of the monster as well as Frankenstein himself, the figure is left unknown so as to leave room for speculation as to who it may be.

I added a title to the image just to see how it would look as a potential front cover, I loved it. I think it works perfectly as a cover.

I didnt want to have a seperate image for the back cover as I think that can sometimes ruin the imagery and the feel of the overall cover for some books. I wanted to have the whole cover as one image, so I made the back image the other side of the front one, so we would see the figures fingers ripping through the black.

Click for bigger image.

This became my final book cover. I didnt want to over do it so I kept it minimal and simple with just the one overall image. The blood red and the pale white of the figure really compliment each other, especially against the black background. I added a blurb and quotes and reviews of the book on the back and side flaps as well as the usual tags on any book. I really like it and think it works very well for the subject matter and reflects the tone of the book and my intentions throughout the project.