The poster promo and cover design for Onna-musha Lost in Time was designed for a Photoshop course from the programme Design Fundamentals at SoftUni Creative.
Throughout the course, the main notions in book cover design were introduced and the elements, requirements and good practices in the field. This was one of the options for the final exam project for the course, the other one being CD cover design. After which, a poster promo for the book or the CD had to be designed as well.
The presented designs of Onna-musha Lost in Time are for a made-up book and author. They are fictional and do not exist in reality.
In the fictional universe in which the author exists, Kawaga Yukiko is a Japanese person living in London, United Kingdom. They write novels which include a wide range of diversity in the characters’ race, sexuality, gender etc. Their novels have gained a lot of popularity by combining elements from Japanese culture and real historical figures with science-fiction narratives and settings. That’s why this year, they were chosen as the face for Bloomsbury’s event of World Diversity Day.
The design for the book cover started from the illustration of a woman samurai. After which, I made research on the topic and found out they had existed in history. They were called onna-musha, hence the title of the book. The plot of the book is based on the plot of the cartoon Samurai Jack with a gender swap of the main character. In addition, there were some sources which talked about homosexuality between onna-musha, because of which there is an implication of a f/f relationship in the review on the back cover of the book.
For the design of the poster promo, an image of the author was placed on the poster, because in the fictional universe where they exist, their face is widely recognised, serving as a way to grab the attention and interest of the viewer.
For the design of the poster promo, an image of the author was placed on the poster, because in the fictional universe where they exist, their face is widely recognised, serving as a way to grab the attention and interest of the viewer.
You can see the full design of the cover below.
You can find links of the vector illustrations and image used for the cover and the poster in the attached files.
