Truman Capote's In Cold Blood Book Cover Design
This project responds to Penguin’s Adult Non-Fiction Cover Award brief, which asks for a redesigned front and back cover for the classic true crime novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. The design must be striking, bold and should ‘break boundaries in the same way that the book did’, whilst remaining true to the book’s content and literary merit. The front cover must be ‘effective on its own and be eye-catching within a crowded bookshop setting’, also working for digital retailers such as Amazon.
After reading the novel I chose to look beyond the murder to use subtler imagery relating to the characters themselves, as Capote takes great care to analyse and explain them in his book. I chose to avoid obvious, over-used colour schemes such as red, white and black, and decided to strip the design back to minimalist shapes and a bold, limited colour palette to stand out amongst its competitors on a bookshelf.
