One flew over the Cuckoo's nest
Penguin design award entry
In designing a book jacket for Ken Kesey’s Novel, the theme of the mental hospital in the story being a dangerous, rather than safe, environment was explored. A barbed wire nest was hand made and aged.
The nest is a symbol of a safe and nurturing environment, while barbed wire conflicts with this assumption,
when used as a metaphor for the cruel psychological damage done to the inmates of Nurse Ratched’s ward.
The stark white background relates to the semiotics of the institutional environment while isolating the
subject from things around it. The feather represents the character of the chief and more generally, the
notion of freedom from oppression.
