Norwegian Wood

A cover for the 2019 Penguin Student Design Award for Murakami’s novel Norwegian Wood. The cover is conveying the intimate universe of Toru’s mind – his jumbled-up thoughts and memories take a prominent space in the front cover, as if they are “rushing back to him”. The “cloud of thoughts” outlines a mountain in the negative space. This was achieved through cutting-out original text from Toru’s first memory of Naoko and assembling it by hand to form a landscape. Toru’s personality also inspires the large negative spaces, which communicate his silence and the tension it creates while events unfold. The vivid contrasting red elements which appear on the cover have evocative functionality inspired by the theme of sexuality, desire, relationships and love.