Re-inventing a classic book cover

Don Quixote De La Mancha

Don Quixote is a Spanish Novel that has gone through more covers than Taylor Swift has boyfriends. One can’t seem to stick. A lot of them are renditions of the same thing: a man on a horse with that long wooden stick thing.

Research

For this project, I was tasked with picking a classic book to re-invent the book cover. It seems like a lot of people have been tasked with this concerning Don Quixote over the years; however, I picked this iconic Spanish novel for two main reasons:

1. I didn’t like any of the covers

2. I read it in high school for my AP Spanish class and thought, “I’m so cool & different no one would ever choose this, I’m so awesome” (lol)

I wanted to focus on the main focus of Don Quixote’s madness: not being able to tell perception from reality. The classic look in the mirror and not seeing your true reflection. Unfortunately for Mr. Quixote he was seeing something grander than his true life circumstances.

Process

After conducting my research and seeing the plethora of all of the different covers people have done, I decided to simplify this complex story. The sketches I landed on are childlike and straightforward. I wanted to highlight the characters as well as some main story archetypes.

I ended up keeping everything B&W to further convey a contrast with the complex story and life of Don Quixote and the understanding of perception versus reality.

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Horseshoe Boots