Penguin Design Award 2013: The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Here is my entry for the Penguin Design Award 2013! Our brief was to redesign the jacket for Raymond Chandler's crime noir novel 'The Big Sleep'. I immensely enjoyed this project, from reading the book and conducting research into 40s and 50s cityscapes, to illustrating the themes and tone of the novel on the front cover. I chose to try and create the title 'The Big Sleep' out of city buildings, you can see how my idea developed in the images below.

And after much tweaking, here is the finished product! I was lucky enough to be shortlisted by Penguin, which was possibly one of the most shocking and exciting things I have ever experienced!

As I was shortlisted, I was invited to the Penguin offices in London for the award ceremony (as an avid reader and book reviewer, I was VERY excited to say the least). My mum and I went along and had a fantastic day. We took in the amazing view of London, drank champagne, chatted with my tutors, even had a few chats with Joanna Prior, the Managing Director of Penguin and John Hamilton, the General Art Director (woweeee!) They were all such lovely, down-to-earth people, to my surprise I didn't feel even slightly intimidated, just welcomed.

 The standard of all the entries was incredible, I was blown away by everyone's book covers! I particularly loved Sam Barley's entry (above). I think it sums up the book brilliantly.

I was absolutely thrilled to get Highly Commended along with two others! Below is a picture of me and the 3 other winners/highly commendeds. What a day. Thanks so so much to Penguin for an experience I will definitely never forget!