Introducing my book cover redesign for 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher:

Or this alternative:

Original Book Design:

Picture of book obtained from Amazon and taken by: Annette Sherwood-Fischer

I chose my first book cover redesign sketch for the book, 13 Reasons Why, by Jay Asher, because I connected with it personally and, also, received positive feedback on using the image of the tape on the cover to represent the essence of the story.

After setting my margins for the book cover to the required measurements and adding guides to mark the 6 in. front and back covers and 1 in. spine, my first project was to find an image of a cassette tape that I felt would work well with my design concept. The tape that I chose was an Adobe stock image, which had a creamy background with colors of red to orange across it. At first it seemed distracting so I used the luminosity blending option to strip the colors to blend with the background (see the alternative book cover image). However, after finishing my project, I added the original colors of the tape back in for a second glance and really liked the effect of how it grabs your attention to the tape. The tapes tell Hannah's story entwined with the story of those involved. They are the beacon of light to the ever so gray darkness of unanswered questions and uncertainty (the whys) that is left behind.

In order to establish that dark, heavy atmosphere of the story, I selected a gradient of medium-dark gray as the background. I wanted to add a little more darkness and depth to the background, so I found a wallpaper with drawings depicting scenes in the book that captured those qualities and added it at 50% opacity to the front and the back covers. I had to use the clone stamp to remove the words from the wallpaper, but left the play button for imagery and effect. The spine was left with the gradient gray background to separate it and to stand out from the covers. In my research of what fonts were used on the original covers, I found that Gill Sans was the primary font of choice. I used a couple variations in the Gill Sans family (MT and Ultra Bold) for my typography and chose to use white and red for the colors of the text with either a drop shadow or outer glow to stand out against the dark background. I added the title to the tape because the 13 tapes represented the reasons for the why while adding symmetry and order as well as the proximity and figure/ground Gestalt principles to the design. I used a gradient overlay of red fading out of the why like blood (life) draining from the body. The inclusion of an arrow as the "play" button at the end of "WHY" in the front cover title and also within the word "PLAY" on the back cover signifies the action of "playing" the tapes needed to uncover the storyline's bloodline. On the spine, I added the title and the author's name on gradient black strips representing pieces of the cassette tape. I did have to use tracking to bring the characters closer to each other and to fit on the spine horizontally at an angle. Each of the 13 question marks representing the 13 people in question on the tapes were added strategically in a lighter gray color to blend with the background but yet stand out.

I added the quote, "Hi, It's Hannah, Hannah Baker . . ." to the front cover as it is the beginning of her story on her tapes. The other two quotes I selected are not direct quotes from the book; rather, they were used to contribute additional depth, provoke curiosity, and pique interest in the content of the book. The quote on the front cover, "Are YOU one of them . . ." serves as a prompt for readers to introspectively evaluate their own lives and the individuals within them. Whereas, the quote on the back cover is more of a call to action. As I had mentioned previously, this was a book assigned to my son in high school with the intention of educating and raising awareness to the underlying issues teenagers face, as well as highlighting the impact that one person can have on another.

After reading your feedback about the author's name added to strips of cassette tape seeming out of place, I changed the design slightly to visualize the change. Let me know if the revised version looks more balanced.