Covers
All covers below are reimaginations for personal portfolio purpose.
Rain appears throughout the novel, often as a quiet atmospheric presence that enhances the novel’s subdued, reflective mood. I transformed the title into rain drops, atmospherically echoing the remoteness, quietness, and distance that mark much of the mother-daughter relationship. A muted palette was used to further reflect the novel’s restrained prose, capturing its sense of quiet introspection.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Year published: 2022
Key themes: Alienation and Cultural Identity, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Introspection and Connection
I want to capture the vertigo lurking in the depth of a seemingly happy and tranquil married life, by placing the diamond ring into a polystyrene fish box. The box also symbolizes the confinement of housewives in a life centred around the mundane, though such a life is clothed in shiny consumer products in a late-stage capitalist society like Japan.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Year published: 2023 (English translation)
Key themes: Gender Role, Domesticity, Alienation in Modern Urban Life
Through the 25 squares of prose poetry, Liu writes both through and into the self, connecting the personal and the national into an origami portrait of a woman contained. The cover reflects the complex emotions of guilt, grief, hypocrisy, and betrayal, that arise from the privilege of enjoying various useless affections in life while remaining deeply conscious of the historical and on-going suffering endured by so many who share her identity and heritage.
Genre: Poetry
Year published: 2022
Key themes: Melancholy, Loss, Fear, Fantasy
Lord Byron is an offstage figure that significantly influenced the narrative—his presence at the English country house in early 19th century has drawn present day scholars to the estate to uncover the scandal said to have taken place during his stay. To reflect the play’s intricate structure, I transformed Lord Byron’s portrait into a jigsaw puzzle, capturing the experience of characters piecing together historical events and mirroring readers’ experience of assembling the narrative from interwoven time periods.
Artwork by: Thomas Phillips
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Year published: 1993
Key themes: Time, Chaos Theory, Knowledge and Ignorance, Love and Passion
I intend to capture Barton’s feeling of “drowning in the sea of foreign speech” by incorporating a chaotic accumulation of Japanese characters at the bottom of the cover. Barton also vividly recreates the extraordinary moments of intuition that arose after immersing herself in this new mode of speaking, thinking, and living. I wish to convey this thrilling experience through making words rise from the sea of unintelligible symbols. To enhance the connection to Japan, I drew inspiration from the iconic The Great Wave off Kanagawa, evoking a sense of cultural depth.
Genre: Non-fiction, Memoir
Year published: 2021
Key themes: Japanese Language and Meaning, Cultural Immersion, Loneliness
To visually reinforce the themes of futility and stagnation, I deliberately repeated the word “waiting” on the cover. The handwriting is intentionally messy, evoking a sense of desperation and agitation. To convey the ambiguity and meaninglessness of the wait, I used an emboss effect to make “Godot” fade into the background. A black-and-white palette was used to reflect the play’s stark essence.
Genre: Absurdist Drama
Year published: 1953
Key themes: Absurdity and Meaninglessness of Life, Repetition and Circularity, Hopelessness, Dark Humour
