This was a book cover made for my Print Design and Production class of one of my favorite books – A Japanese novel titled Kafka on the Shore, written by Haruki Murakami. I chose the image of a crow because the main character identifies himself as Crow, and that theme stretches throughout the book. The use of blue was also chosen as it evoked the ocean, another important symbol.

Many other book covers for Kafka on the Shore have really unusual or odd imagery – Probably because Kafka is a weird book – and I think that a more simplified version would bring in more people to it’s story. Other versions of the cover took the same approach as me, but they all looked a little plain. I think that I made it seem a little more interesting than the other ones.

Something I would love to add to it would be an obi, or belt, which is often included on Japanese book releases to add things like marketing claims. On one of my books, Designing Design by Kenya Hara, it has it’s own obi with the title and some accolades for the book, and it adds a really interesting tactile feel and makes it seem a little more premium.

I haven’t had the chance to design very many book covers, so this gave me a lot of insight as to what goes into it, and I think that it turned out really well for one of my first attempts at something like this.