Back when I was in my senior year of High School, I wrote this short story titled “The Angel’s Lullaby.” It was for my Writer’s Craft course, one of my favourites back in the day. It was also my most ambitious work to that date.
The story follows the journey of Rose, a teenage girl who has recently lost her grandmother and is trying to reconnect with her through a magical music box she left behind before her departure. Rose will have to face a series of challenges and lessons before being able to reach her goal of reaching her beloved grandma once again. It’s a story about grief, healing, family bonds, and growth.
I was quite proud of it when I first wrote it, and when the chance came up for me to design my own book cover, this story immediately came to mind.
In my design I chose to incorporate key elements of the story and play with the words in the title. For instance, I used cursive letters that seem playful yet refined, adding a halo on top of the “A” in “Angel’s” to emphasize that word and transmit some of the narrative. I chose a sky to maintain a celestial theme, but chose for it to be a night sky, as it references the “Lullaby” part of the title.
In terms of my symbols, I used stars (big and small, in different shades of yellow) for both, my front and back covers, and played with the sizes of the stars, so that I could include texts for my positive reviews inside of them. Additionally, one of my favourite creative choices that I made with this cover design was making the text in the back cover the shape of a crescent moon. Finally, for the branding, I used a music note as a logo, to subtly create a play on the musical aspect of the title.
Overall, it was a fun experience revisiting some of my old work and thinking about how I could reinvent it and turn it into something completely different while preserving the essence of the original concept. It is quite rewarding to see your own growth through your work.