"High Rise" by JG Ballard | Book cover design

Self initiated cover design for "High Rise" by JG Ballard.

I kinda broke the golden rule in this one of "never visualise the title literally" by including a picture of a high-rise. Hopefully it's not a wasted opportunity and the treatment has subverted it into the slightly more hellish and dark nightmare that living in this particular one entails. The twisted and offset perspectives, along with the colour scheme, are meant to evoke something queasy, something brutal and something all-devouring. And just for fun, the glass and concrete shards morph into a pair of seagulls (minor characters in one rooftop scene).

Photography for this collage was taken in London (The Barbican Estate, Centre Point and a grim-looking hotel somewhere up the Tottenham Court Road).

Main typography: Coluna Condensed Bold.
Body text: good old modernist Akzidenz Grotesk.