For this project, I was tasked with redesigning the cover of a novel. I chose to redesign Dan Brown’s Inferno by taking elements of the story and mixing it with elements of Renaissance art. Personally, I found the original novel cover not reflective enough of the actual story, and is rather a mismash of artistic references. I also found the style of the novel cover to not be reflective of the tone of the novel itself, which causes discord between the two ideas.
My main idea for this work was to use the spiral shape present in Botticelli’s Map of Hell (the painting being a prominent part of the story) to draw in the reader’s eyes to the cover. The shape would guide them throughout the piece, first from the title to the city and then to the city and water below. Because I included the city in which the novel takes place in and also the painting that was a big part of the story, I feel as if this is a better representation of the novel as a whole as I incorporated both the modern and historic elements of the novel.
To improve from my rough to my final, I followed criticisms that were offered to me by my peers. I decided to eliminate completely the bag at the bottom, which was supposed to represent the vector virus that presents itself as a major threat in the novel. I also changed the background to be more reminiscent of a night sky as opposed to the original dark blue to light blue gradient. Instead of drawing waves to represent water, I instead photoshopped the reflection of the city to have a water texture, effectively representing the ocean. Finally, I shifted the title and author to the top of the cover, so that the bottom of the cover wouldn’t be so busy and instead create effective movement from to top to the bottom.
asastedesigns 