Dreams// Prejudices// Classics

It's every designer's dream to re-design for classics. We have our own thoughts, ideas, one can say dream versions of these covers. But at the same time these can be a challenge too. Because over the years there would be so many versions floating around that to come up with something different is a task. So is breaking other people's set idea about the cover, the book and its look. Because since the book is around for so long everyone from the reader to the sales-man would have their own visual in mind. their own perception their own prejudice. Doesn't that happen in life otherwise too? We expect certain things to be in a particular fashion and feel uncomfortable if they are not that way. Maybe... But as a designer I wish it was not that way.

This is my version of the George Orwell classics 'Animal Farm' and '1984'. Not ground breaking really but I guess not bad either.

Here is what I really wanted to do. (it's just at the idea stage and not the finished cover). But I guess the visuals overpowered the type and we went for the earlier version.

FUNNY BOY:

This is another classic by Shyam Selvadurai. It's his remarkable debut novel, a boy’s bittersweet passage to maturity and sexual awakening is set against escalating political tensions in Sri Lanka during the seven years leading up to the 1983 riots. Arjie Chelvaratnam is a Tamil boy growing up in an extended family in Colombo. It is through his eyes that the story unfolds and we meet a delightful, sometimes eccentric, cast of characters. Arjie’s journey from the luminous simplicity of childhood days into the more intricately shaded world of adults—with its secrets, its injustices, and its capacity for violence—is a memorable one, as time and time again the true longings of the human heart are held against the way things are.

This is my version of it. Which I enjoyed illustrating and had fun working on.

But this is the final version of the cover. Not bad but I loved the earlier one. Though what was interesting about the cover was getting the image. I had the most wonderful experience with the photographer Véronique Piaser (http://www.flickr.com/photos/piasermoyen)

She was so excited about the project since she had read the book and loved it and was super excited about her picture going on the cover.