My project in Book Cover Design: Illustrate Stories with Evocative Images course

When starting this course, I had just read the book "In het Reine" by Agnès Martin-Lugand. So it felt obvious that I would pick that book as my subject, as I was still fresh in my memory.

In short, the story revolves around a woman, Reine, who is a single mom of her son Noé. Reine has a big secret that could lead to disaster concerning her son and all of her family.

A big part of the story happens in a seaside village of France, Saint-Malo. This villages plays a big role throughout the story, so I really wanted to make a cover that has something to do with that seaside village. When looking up pictures, I noticed it had beautiful walls around the city, but also some kind of path/bridge that is going nowhere in the sea. I really liked the idea of the endless path, referring to Reines endless road to truth. I wanted the image to be both calming and maybe frightening, as trying to come clean of a very big lie can be both as well.

The following images show the process of rough sketches, to grayscale sketches, to a colour test, to final result.