Children's book cover

This project consists of a redesigned book jacket for the title 'The River Singers' by Tom Moorhouse. The target audience is children aged 9–11 years. My final design showcases the beautiful landscape depicted in the book alongside the water voles which are the heroes of the story, the villain in the story, an evil mink is lurking below the seemingly unaware water voles in the river. I produced all the artwork myself using a combination of hand drawing and digital work in Adobe Illustrator.

To reach my final book cover design I started by carrying out extensive research into children's books of the same age range and genre and looked at what makes certain covers successful. I also looked into the different animals and environments in the book to help come up with ideas. After completing research I started sketching initial ideas and drawings I thought would work and kept developing these using my own thoughts and feedback from others. I worked hard to improve the salience of the cover, particularly the type as well as create a sense of depth and realism in the background, while maintaining the illustrative style suitable for children. To add light into the cover and bring characters forward I added hints of yellow which I think works well.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed designing book covers for OUP and would be open to work on more in the future as I love the creativeness they bring as well as a challenge.​​​​​​​