my process
The Giver is one of the most popular young adult novels, winning multiple awards such as the 1994 Newbury Medal. The book was originally published in 1993, so it is nearing its 30 year anniversary. In honor of the upcoming milestone, I decided to redesign the cover.
When brainstorming a concept for the redesign, I knew that I didn't want to use the face of the Giver. I then tried to think about important and popular themes of the book. I briefly considered using the iconic apple on the cover, but I had seen that done before and I wanted to take it one step further.
I decided to represent the transmission of memories through touch on the cover. Although the Giver shares his memories by touching Jonas' back, I felt like a simple drawing of two hands touching would be able to convey the importance without giving away too much about the plot. I started by sketching two hands, shown to the left.
I then moved to Adobe Illustrator, where I used two reference photos of hands to draw the hands shown above. The illustrative look is very popular right now, so I decided to do color blocks when drawing the hands instead of blending them together more.
The typeface of the title is Euphemia UCAS, a sans serif typeface. I chose this because I feel like it successfully conveys the dystopian feeling of the book without being too harsh.
I decided to make the background of the cover a simple black. I think the simplicity of the background allows the hands and their slight touch to be the focal point of the cover.
Before
After
