The Apothecary Diaries
Alternative Book Cover
Alternative Book Cover
For this assignment, we had to create a book cover. For my story, I chose the Apothecary Diaries. A popular light novel turned manga turned anime. The story follows Maomao, an apothecary working in the red light district, as she's kidnapped and sold to the inner palace (based off Imperial China) to work as a servant girl. Using her medical knowledge, she solves a lot of the mysteries that plague the servants of the inner palace, but not even she could have predicted how deep the rabbit hole goes...
My biggest fear for this assignment was taking too much inspiration from the original light novel. My teachers told me to create my own style. So my first few sketches I tried to step away from drawing any detailed characters, even though part of me wanted to have a character on the cover. Other ideas included putting objects of importance on the cover like hairpins, the rhododendron branch or whitening powder.
After one of my teachers told me to begin experimenting, I looked up other book covers to gain inspiration. In hindsight this ended up barring me a lot. I chose three styles that I'd use as a base for these conceptual covers. The first was a more minimalistic style, the second a more illustrative style and third an abstract style where I was inpsired to experiment with lettering.
Only after creating these three did another teacher point out my mistake. He told me to search up more elements of the Tang Dynasty and to search up images of actual apothecaries. This way I could broaden my perspective on my designs instead of limiting myself to what already existed.
Based on the advice given to me, I scoured Pinterest for a long time. The deadline was fast approaching but my teacher reassured me that I'd be able to make it. My last few sketches ended up being more my own than the former. While I really liked the top design, I ended up choosing for the most right design. This choice was influenced by time constraints but the contrast between the plants in full bloom on the front and withering on the back spoke to me. This also tied in nicely to a major theme of beauty in the book.
My final design features the outline of flowers and herbs. The colors behind them are vibrant but also noxious. Not only does this tie in to the many poisonings that you'll read about but also how the beauty of the concubines comes at a cost. We see that cost on the back of the book, where the colors have dulled and the plants have withered. They symbolize the fate of many women who aren't 'beautiful enough', pushed aside and left to die.
I only had two weeks for this assignment. This really put the pressure on high, and my mistakes made me stress a lot. However with support from my teachers I managed to make a cover I'm really happy with. I'm also proud of myself for communicating more with my teachers, which I hope didn't reach annoying levels. For my next assignment I want to make sure I make decisions even earlier. This way I hope to decrease the amount of stress and reach better results.
