Penguin Student Design: Fiction Cover Entry 2020

This design was created as a part of the 2020 Penguin Design Award for the Adult Fiction entry. The brief for this cover was to create a design which encapsulates the overall plot of the novel, without adapting to stereotypical spy-story tropes. The cover represents the main source of conflict of the book, an envelope of government official documents which is given to the main character, which he writes on with a thick red marker. The rope shown in the cover is added to represent the danger of the plot, as well as the claustrophobic nature of being bound up, similar to the main characters claustrophobic experience which drives the main character to change his life forever.