the secret garden redesign
Book Cover • Layout Design • Illustration • Typography • Publishing
Institution: Tyler School of Art & Architecture, Temple University
Art Direction: Paul Kepple
Fall 2021
For this project, I was tasked to illustrate an existing well known book and I chose “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett. This novel captures the story of a stubborn young girl dealing with grief and transitions to a friendly person who finds herself by exploring a beautiful garden. I wanted to highlight the main character’s behavioral changes through the use of monochromatic illustrations becoming full color as the story progresses. I emphasized the magical essence of the story through the unrealistic yet admirable illustrations.
This story has many elements of surprise which can be seen with my cover design. I created a melancholic yet sophisticated book jacket of the secret garden door key hole that shows a peak of the hardcover book pattern. This pattern is bright and natural which juxtaposes the jacket cover drastically. Cover typography and all illustrations hand done in procreate.
Design and Illustration style
I knew the concept of the design from the first choosing of the book, but developing an illustration style was the most challenging. I did not have much experience with character design, but I knew I wanted to create a vintage yet quirky style of the important scenes. I decided on creating the illustrations with textures, patterns and light color treatment. I chose specific scenes with dynamic use of characters and nature. Keeping that dynamic feel throughout the entire book by using spot illustrations, full spread and page illustrations.
bringing the final together
Continuing the vintage style I used a serif type for the book chapter openers and running head along with a sans serif for the body type. The final deliverables include 19 spreads including end papers, title page spread, chapter openers and illustrated spreads. We were also tasked to create a physical bind of the book which was very rewarding to do because it brought the project to life. I’m very proud of the final project because of everything I learned and how memorable the process was.
process and sketching phase
The process was new experience for me because I started by researching and character sketching rather than developing a brand and logo style . The process taught me to not entirely give up when something is not going right with my illustration. Another major thing I learned is that every little detail counts, like the page number embellishments or the specific color combinations.
