Book Cover Design - Còn chút gì để nhớ (What's left to remember)

Còn chút gì để nhớ (What is left to remember) is a novel composed in 1988 by writer Nguyen Nhat Anh, consisting of 31 parts. Being set against the background of Vietnam in 1975, the story is around Chuong, an 18-year-old boy full of dreams and passions, leaving the countryside of Central Vietnam to go to Saigon to earn a university degree. Then he meets new people. There are people who just pass through his life, but there are also people who stick with him for the rest of his life. (Wikipedia)

The thing that left the most impression on me about this book is not sadness or regret about an unfinished love, but Saigon. The atmosphere of Saigon, the rhythm of Saigon life, and the people of Saigon have been skillfully portrayed by the author through very close situations from the perspective of a person from another area.

Below are previously published book covers:

As mentioned above, I will use Saigon as the main theme to describe the main atmosphere and emotions expressed on the cover of the book. The photos kept of old Saigon always have its own unique color scheme. Along with the costumes, signs or vehicles of that time, Saigon has a "modern" but nostalgic, unique and unmistakable beauty.

After capturing the general feeling and spirit from the reference images, I began to sketch out the first ideas, connecting the content, the featured segments with the iconic image; then find ways to guide the dominant emotion and select options that have the potential to develop into a book cover.

After I got the simple, stand-alone images, I started putting them in thumbnails to illustrate the front cover of the book. I use the power of composition to create a variety of choices.

From the ideas outlined above, I have selected three options to continue developing into roughs, combined with other elements such as font, layout and, density or depth of each image.

Option 1: The image of a cyclo (xích lô) has been used a lot in previous book covers, although in the story this image only appears in a few situations. In my opinion, because cyclo is a feature of Saigon, especially Saigon in the 60s.

Option 2: Chuong came to Saigon to get a university degree. Therefore, I think the image of the university gate is also highly symbolic. At the same time, the layout of this option makes me feel closest to the book title.

Option 3: In addition to the cyclo, the word "xe đò" (bus) can also be considered a feature of Saigon at that time. In this option, I not only want to describe the atmosphere here, but also a bus that brings people to Saigon, or back to Saigon. Related to the plot, it can be understood that this is the bus that brought Chuong to a new life in a bustling foreign land, or the car that Chuong "escaped" from his memories here.

After considering the above 3 options, I chose option 3 as the final option to develop into a complete book cover. Because I think this is a fairly new direction and shows the portrait of Saigon more clearly than the other two options.