Great Gatsby Edition

Illustration / Editorial

Great Gatsby nameplate rendition I designed using a 1920's style font in gold over a dark blue background that gradates to black around the edges.

The Idea

The goal was to create an eye-catching edition of The Great Gatsby. The challenge was to make it look unique compared to other editions of the novel, while still showing representation of the story itself.

Moodboard with different editions of The Great Gatsby and 1920s designs.
Sketches I made for the front cover/poster

The Process

The use of dark blue and gold is common in designs centred on the Great Gatsby, but a lot of the most important events in the book take place at night and gold is very prominent in the interior decorating of Gatsby's mansion. So these colours represent the novel best. A lot of Art Deco is also commonly used because of the same interior decorating. One of my sketches uses Art Deco, but I ultimately decided to stray from this common theme used.

Colour palette I used including dark blue, gold, black, and white.
Font pairing I used including Young 20s - regular, Italianno - bold, and Baskerville - regular.

The Guidelines

I used the font, Young 20's, to match with the time the book was written and set.

Great Gatsby poster rendition I designed with an illustration of a yellow Rolls Royce over a dark blue background.
Great Gatsby poster rendition I designed with an illustration of a dress shirt with a bowtie and handkerchief in solid goldish yellow over a dark blue background.
Great Gatsby poster rendition I designed with an illustration of a martine glass in solid goldish yellow over a dark blue background.

The Posters

I feel that the most important motif in the story is Gatsby's yellow Rolls Royce, so I illustrated one in Illustrator to use on the cover.

Cover layout with an illustration of a yellow Rolls Royce on the cover with the title 'The Great Gatsby' underneath. There is a black spine and on the left is the summary of the auther, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Opened hardcover book lying on a table, pages down. There is an illustration of a yellow Rolls Royce on the cover with the title 'The Great Gatsby' underneath.
Open book on table with pages facing up revealing spread of the last page of a previous chapter on the left and the first page of the next chapter on the right.

End Result

I used InDesign for the inner page layouts. I made mockups of the book in Photoshop. I printed my book and saddle stitched it. I felt that I executed my goal well.

The Great Gatsby was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

⟵ Cratus

Fizzy Moods ⟶