Slaughter-House Five

Written By: Kurt Vonnegut

BOOK COVER PROTOTYPES

Inspiration: Slaughter-House Five is most commonly described as an anti-war book, often over-shadowing the fact that it is also a sci-fi story which I chose to highlight in this book cover. The triangle which is central to the design is the window to the outer galaxy and lends its structure in forming the roman numeral five. I contrasted the front of the cover with a familiar presence of earth by using the city skyline to frame the content of the back cover. 

Adobe Software: Illustrator

Inspiration: This design centers around the anti-war theme of the story by angling the direction of the airplanes toward the ground as if their lives are fated to end along with the strong presence of the colour red to reinforce this theme.

Adobe Software: Illustrator, Photoshop

Inspiration: In this version of the book cover, I decided to refine my design and chose the city of Dresden to be the focal point of the cover as it is one of the focal points of the story.

Adobe Software: Illustrator

Inspiration: Similar to the  previous version of the anti-war theme design, I decided to use the dropping missiles to illustrate this idea. The targetless downward motion of the missiles is to illustrate that no victor is defined and no person is spared in this senseless act.

Adobe Software: Illustrator

Inspiration: This design relies heavily on the bold primary red and bright yellow of the font to frame the pocket watch that symbolizes the concept of time that is heavy throughout the story. This design, like the previous two above, borrows from published layouts of the Kurt Vonnegut series which includes his famous asterisk sign  centered on the spine and the doodle of his portrait on the back cover.

Adobe Software: Illustrator