top of page
book covers and film posters
A fun personal project is to take an existing book or film and design a completely new cover or poster to reflect its contents in a manner that will allow the reader or viewer to gain an entirely new perspective of the story. This page contains a collection of some of my favorites.
lolita
When he first spoke of designing the cover for Lolita, author Vladimir Nabokov specifically said "No girls." Yet, nearly every popular cover I have seen of the book contains imagery of a little girl, often in a manner that contradicts the disturbing nature of its contents. Despite its common misconception as a love story, Lolita is actually a story of abuse told from the point of view of the abuser.
My challenge for this project was to take typical imagery associated with young girls and subvert it to reflect the true horror that is Lolita.
From shattered lollipops to wilted flowers, the goal was to create a visual representation of Humbert's continuous abuse inflicted upon Dolores which he touts to the reader as "forbidden love." The quotes I chose for the back were specifically chosen to reflect this concept, and once the viewer understands that, even the "typical" image of the strawberry invokes disgust rather than arousal.
For the film posters, I chose similar imagery and a release date that readers of the book will know as significant—the day "Lolita" dies in childbirth.
tease
Written by Amanda Maciel, Tease is a novel that subverts the typical story of high school bullying—by telling it from the point of view of one of the bullies. After Emma Putnam dies by suicide, protagonist Sara Wharton and three of her friends are charged with the bullying and harassment that led the new student to take her own life. Soon enough, it becomes a national court case, and Sara must face the consequences of her actions both inside and outside the classroom, all while finding a way to move forward.
Despite this book being a fairly quick read, it has not left my mind since I discovered it—especially knowing the author based it on the Phoebe Prince case that occurred during my own high school years only one state over. As such, I chose imagery meant to invoke a typical high school environment with a serious, subdued tone, along with broken glass motifs to reflect how the bullying in the story shattered multiple lives, not just that of the victim. Remembering the graffiti I've seen in various environments growing up (and how it was often used as a covert method for bullying), I used a similar font for the main tagline to further bring the point home.
Although no film adaptation currently exists of the novel, there is an incident in the book where Emma finds a derogatory term written on her locker in blood-red lipstick in just one of many cruel pranks at her expense. I thought it would make a striking poster for a potential film.
bottom of page