Don’t judge a book by its cover…

The Problem:

Uninspired book covers that do not look as though they have been written by the same author

The Hypothesis:

Redesigning the book covers to reveal more of the story, with cohesion between covers, will entice more readers to dive in to the Kerouac classics.

For such a well known author, Kerouac’s book covers leave something to be desired. They give little hint as to what the story may be about, and lack a general theme, making the books look as though they have been written by many different authors. The current design screams “high school English read” and not something to be displayed on a bookshelf at home.

I wanted to keep the design inspired by the Beat generation, non-conformative, nomadic, and anti-consumeristic. My goal was to show the story without telling it, hooking the reader with enough detail to entice them to read the book to finish the story. That is why I chose a scrapbook style of imagery, as though Kerouac himself ripped out pieces from brochures and stuck them in to his own journal.