The White Bone
book cover illustration
Project Brief
This was a design exercise at the Toronto Film school. We were asked to design an origami style cover illustration for a novel that expressed the mood and message of the author.
Project Rationale
The representation of an elephant was an obvious choice for the cover of The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy because the story is a bout a group of elephants trying to survive in the African savannah.
The pose chosen for the elephant is highly dynamic, it’s is full of movement because the story is about the group’s journey to scape human poachers by trying to reach "The safe place”.
A high contrast color palette was chosen to create a visual tension between the elephant and the background. This represents the author’s message about the hopelessness faced by endangered species, also, it reflects the general tense mood of the novel’s survival story.
The background color works in different levels, this earthy orange tone makes a reference to the color of the ground in the savannah, It also makes reference to savannah sunsets. The main character is called Mud accordingly, the background is also a reference to the main character.
The elephant is represented in a monochromatic blue palette with different gradients to create deepness effects. The palette represent the lack of control the elephants possess in their own survival because of the passive energy of blue tones.
Thanks for watching :)
