I have created a book cover design for the annual Penguin Student Design competition for 2023. I was given three categories of books to choose from and I chose to design my own book cover sleeve for the novel Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman under the children’s category.

After receiving this particular brief, I went on to create a detailed time plan to help me stay on track as I was on maternity leave during the entirety of this project. I then completed some interesting research into existing book cover designers. Some examples of the artists I investigated include: Coralie Bickford-Smith, Chip Kidd, Joan Wong, and Erin Fitzsimmons. I then proceeded to create various inspirational mood-boards and mind-maps.

I wanted to utilise hand written typography within my final book cover design for the Noughts and Crosses novel, so I carried out some more research surrounding this particular topic, and completed some experimentation designs. After reading the Noughts and Crosses book, ensuring that I was familiar with the story it became important for me to represent some of the impactful themes within this book. I have done this through my illustration of Callum and Sephy’s homes appearing widely separated and different from each-other underneath the title upon my front cover design.