Cover design of epic poem - "The Odyssey" & "The Iliad" - Written by Homer, Translated by Samuel Butler
Two part cover, dust jacket and hardcover
Kettle Stitch Binding by hand
My aim was to interpret the poetic poem written by Homer in modern society to fit that in an A5 sized novel. By being inspired by poetic book covers I decided to take on a more conceptual idea of illustrating the contents of the books. The idea of the die cut lines that run through the dust jacket is to tell the story and how the intensity in the book carriers through. It is also meant to represent the idea of how the books first came about as a story told rather then read.
For the Odyssey the 12 lines represents the 12 axes that Odyssey cuts through at the climax of the book. Then for The Iliad the nine lines represents the nine days that Achilles dragged Hector’s body around troy thus ending the long battle between the two.
Through the use of colours, such as red for Odyssey as it is a representation of romance, love, betrayal as I have interpret the story more as a desperation for a family to reunite. I wanted to move away from the traditional colours used to represent the book such as blue.
For the Iliad using black was to symbolize the devastations that each character experiences, the death and destruction that comes from war. Combining that with modern serif fonts to still keep the touch of the classic novels that these two books are.
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Thank you
