Book Cover Design for Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
I made it as a fan tribute to Mr.Murakami's work. I'm very thankful and proud to announce that my design was chosen to be displayed at The Japan Foundation of Cultural Exchange's art exhibition room in Vietnam, alongside other great, great works from winning contestants in a book cover design contest hosted by Nha Nam - a publisher in Vietnam. It was a tremendous honor for me.
There are many hidden concepts went into this simple design, but my main goal for this cover was to make it look like a blood stain caused by a blade on a white robe, and to make the key visual element looks like a big number 1 letter, since this is supposed to be the cover for the 1st book of the Killing Commendatore series in Vietnam. Same idea went to Japanese version, as I flipped the KV 90 degrees to make it look like the number 1 letter in Kanji.
Here is the video posted on Nha Nam's social media page of the exhibition.
It was held at 23 Quang Trung St., Hoan Kiem, Ha Noi from Oct 23rd to Nov 9th 2020.
Thanks for watching!
Phong Tran - Designer
