Redesigned Book Covers

The Collector and The Butterfly Garden have similar themes of identity, obsession, and blurs the line between illusion and reality. I redesigned these books with a more vibrant and playful illustration style to have a contrasting effect with the unsettling plot of the stories.

THE COLLECTOR

The Collector involves a young socially awkward man who works as a clerk and collects butterflies as a hobby. Out of admiration for her beauty, he kidnaps a female college student and locks her in his basement, adding her to his “collection” of beautiful things and hopes that she will eventually grow to love him.

This book is split into two parts, one told by Clegg, the kidnapper’s perspective, and the other told in Miranda, the kidnapped woman’s perspective. This book also shows the power struggle between the captor and captive as Miranda ends up pitying Clegg at one point, showing that Clegg’s inability to adapt into society had caused him to look weak.

I wanted to portray the idea of perspective by showing Miranda in a higher angle looking down onto the spider, which portrays Clegg showing that she was able to overcome the mental “game”. The cover flaps show bits of the main parts of the book. One side of the flap shows Miranda stuck in the basement, and the other flap shows Clegg’s obsession with beauty, especially Miranda’s beauty as he believes that photographs captures and retains beauty.

THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN

The Gardener who was a wealthy man kidnapped young women with his son. They did disturbing things to them, and gave them new identities and tattooed their backs and sometimes their faces with wings to brand them as part of the Garden. Once the girls turn 21 or misbehave in any way, they are killed and preserved in a resin-coated case. They are then lined up along the halls where the girls lived which is a constant reminder of what would happen to them.

Despite all these terrible things going on, the girls formed strong bonds with each other by relying on each other. They were able to preserve memories from their past life, by adapting to their new identity.

This illustration plays with perspective as well, the gardener looking up at his “butterflies” from his safe haven, while it is a prison for the girls. The back cover shows one of the girls “hatched” from her cocoon and trapped in an encasement. Surrounding her are butterflies with damaged wings, symbolizing her inability to escape.