"The Awakening" Book Cover Project

This was one of my favorite projects in undergrad. I was able to incorporate a watercolor painting I made and adjust it to the needs of the project. While this was a completely hypothetical design, I loved the idea of it being used to represent a book that I loved so much.

The main character of the Awakening is a woman trapped by convention of the times and of her sex who seeks to break out of the careful mold she was made into through artistic and sexual expression. The woman and the ocean background behind her are watercolored with use of gouache to reflect the character’s use of art to express and realize herself. It also symbolizes that Edne, the focus, has been painted into the role of a perfect woman but she is more than her frame as her eyes search for a connection with the reader looking back at her through the cover. A rip through the painting reveals the title of the book while also covering Edna’s mouth. This can have a double meaning but mainly shows how her voice is smothered by society in the novel and she is made to feel powerless because of it. There is also the feeling of peeling back layers of her character to reveal the title “Awakening”, as she has an awakening within herself throughout the novel that would be covered up by the perfect picture society painted her into. The background of the dust jacket is the ocean, hinting at the ending of the story. Readers get a peak at an important part of the story that they will only understand after reading the book. The book is modernized inside through the use of the sans serif font Acumin Variable that makes the novel seem more current to a younger audience.