The Seven Dials Mystery is an Agatha Christie novel, which of course means murder and mystery. My assignment here, for my graphic design course, was to make a cover for the book, one that would “catch the eye” in a book store…. the result is above, but I thought I’d show a little of the process here.

First was the brainstorming, with “assumptions” and “reverse assumptions.” In other words, write down the most obvious ideas, then try to subvert or reverse these ideas.

With a few different ideas, I played around with some simple sketches and visual ideas, based on themes from the book. Clocks and the number seven are very central themes in the story, as are people who wear hoods/masks that look like clocks.

I listened to the Seven Dials Mystery audiobook while sketching, to get the ideas flowing. You know, Agatha Christie was a really good writer.

From there, I did three colour sketches, with different suggestions for cover styles:

I actually listened to the audiobook twice in a row while working on this. I don’t know how it is with you, but I think murder mysteries are often more fascinating on the second read, when you know who the murderer is and what’s going on. That’s when you can notice the clues the author has put into the story, look at all the red herrings and the false leads: “Oh, right, that’s why that person said and did this thing.”

The covers all take inspiration either from moments in the text… but in the end, the choice for which to choose as the final cover was pretty easy.

The top suggestion is far too generic and uninteresting, and while the bottom suggestion had some potential (the style reminds me of the kind of cozy murder books I usually found in my father’s library), the middle suggestion was by far the best one. It draws the eye and is the most dynamic and dramatic one.

So the final version ended up as this:

Book covers are fascinating. The saying is “never judge a book by its cover,” but a while a good book cover doesn’t necessarily guarantee for a good book (or vice versa), a book cover can say a lot about the story within.