Norwegian Wood - Book Cover Design

Letter exchange plays an important role in communication between two characters in the book, Naoko and Toru. Therefore, my concept is about communication and self-expression. A passage was derived from one of Naoko’s letters where she struggles to express her feelings; an aspect which dominates her personality. To retain the physicality of exchanged letters, a typewriter was used to create the front cover. The letter forms are fading to represent the gaps in Naoko’s self-expression. The choice of colour is determined by the black and red ribbon in the typewriter while indirectly referring to the red colour within the Japanese culture.