The Big Sleep (Penguin Awards)

•

The Brief

The Big Sleep is a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happens to possess elements of mystery and crime. The story is well known both in celluloid and print so it is essential to come at it from a fresh angle. Try to design a new cover for a new generation of readers, avoiding the obvious clichés. Originality is key.

Audience

all readers both familiar and unfamiliar with the text, male and female.

Message:

there are many layers and themes within the book. Read it and discover what the book

means to you.

My Outcome

Below is my final outcome for the big sleep cover. I was heavily influenced by the great Saul bass and Steven marking while creating this. At first I wanted to be as illustrative as possible, but it wasn’t working out for me so I turned to Saul bass for inspiration and inspiration is what I got. I wanted to create it just like all of the Raymond Chandler books that are available just so it would fit in with the family of books. As you will se that the background is kind of hectic, the red squares I’ve used is to represent a birds eye view of LA in the 1930’s, but you could say mayhem or shattered glass, either one suits it well.