aboutimage galleriescontactsubscribe

'Things Fall Apart' Book Cover

MARCH 12, 2008
Last year I was commissioned by Random House to create a series of covers for the paperback reissues of books by the African author Chinua Achebe.  The first book I've finished is Things Fall Apart.

A description from Amazon:  "Things Fall Apart is a relentlessly unsentimental rendering of Nigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism. First published in 1958, just two years before Nigeria declared independence from Great Britain, the book eschews the obvious temptation of depicting pre-colonial life as a kind of Eden. Instead, Achebe sketches a world in which violence, war, and suffering exist, but are balanced by a strong sense of tradition, ritual, and social coherence."
This is the final cover design.  I submitted a few hand lettering treatments for the cover and was happy to see that one of them was used by the designers working on the project (Helen Yentus and John Gall).  I enjoy hand lettering and try to introduce it into some of the projects I work on.
Some of the hand lettering and rough sketches for the cover are below:
Hand lettering
Rough sketches and ideas for the book cover
Topical: BOOK COVERS  
© 2024 Edel Rodriguez