The Handmaid's Tale
Designs and Reasoning
This three-week project, The Handmaid’s Tale Cover Re-design, was intended to create a new cover that portrays the storyline in the novel. I wanted to create something that captured the dark story of a new society that brings modern day life back to a period of oppression. The project pushed me to use more pieces of traditional, physical media, which I feel has helped me grow as a designer and appreciate using tools outside of digital software. Some of these many hands-on elements include creating stamps and block printing for the type on the back cover, using a roller to create a concreate wall like texture, painting, writing, and drawing. Each piece was meticulously created to bring the story to life on the cover. In addition to the cover spread and gatefolds, I also created 3 bookmarks that expand upon other important happenings in the book such as phrases that were used consistently and letters written by handmaid’s depicting their experiences. The full cover spread, including the gatefolds, is 20 in x 8.5 in and each bookmark is 2 in x 6 in.
Sketches and Drafts
What Went Into This
The original assignment was to redesign the cover of a book using only type to create an image. We were limited to a selection of about 5 books, of which we would choose one to recreate the front cover and the spine of the book. This was a three-week project with continuous critiques to push each other to create something unique with the strict guidelines. The choice to use The Handmaid's Tale as my selected book was made because the storyline intrigued me. Upon submission, I had created the design to the right with the figure created out of the book title and a rope coming down from the top to insinuate a noose (a prominent piece of the storyline is that handmaids who disobeyed enough times were hanged for all to see). In the re-creation, I wanted to push past those original assignment constraints and push myself to use traditional pieces of media to create a more graphic and alluring design.
