Virginia Woolf
Book Cover Design | Student Work
This is a series of book covers for three of the most popular works of Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse, The Wave, and Mrs. Dalloway. All of the covers are original illustrations done with Photoshop and Wacom tablet. Each book cover has a different style depending on the narrative style that Virginia used in the story.
Virginia Woolf
Book Cover Design | Student Work
This is a series of book covers for three of the most popular works of Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse, The Wave, and Mrs. Dalloway. All of the covers are original illustrations done with Photoshop and Wacom tablet. Each book cover has a different style depending on the narrative style that Virginia used in the story.
Overview
Typography
Sabon LT Bold
Sabon LT Pro Roman
Target Audience
Virginia Woolf aficionados that might relate the painting styles with the narrative. Also, people who might understand why paintings were the choice of medium, as her sister was a painter and made her original book covers.
Objectives
Create a system of three book covers by the same author or genre and communicate the feeling of the stories through imagery.
Software Used
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Indesign,
and Wacom Tablet.
Book Covers
Mrs. Dalloway | Final Design
To The Lighthouse | Final Design
The Wave | Final Design
Mrs. Dalloway | Draft
To The Lighthouse | Draft
The Wave | Draft
Here is a comparison of the final design with the penultimate design. We can see the final changes implemented before finalizing the covers.
I removed the solid background behind the title on the spine and the drop cap in the paragraph on the dust jacket.
I relocated the author's bio and completely redid the Wave cover design.
Illustrations
Mrs. Dalloway
An omniscient narrator who knows everything about the characters and constantly shifts point of view; I tried to convey this narrative style through an expressionist painting.
To The Lighthouse
Uses a stream-of-consciousness narrative style with an anonymous narrator. Since the narrator gives us insight into the characters' feelings, I decided to make it a watercolor painting.
Everything feels dreamy, and a theme of the story is bringing order to life’s chaos. Because watercolor paintings are unpredictable and we can't always control the outcome, I felt this style captured the story’s theme.
The Wave
It uses a stream-of-consciousness narrative as an experimental novel, so I decided to represent the waveform abstractly.
The waves and the apple tree serve as motifs in the story, so I decided to include them on the book cover.
Process Work
I created a system for the book covers because they had to connect as a series. All of the book covers have the author's signature in the same location, the title of the story at the top, the publisher's logo on the spine, and a brief synopsis on the back. Even though the imagery is rendered in different artistic styles, they all fit within the system.