Book Covers- A Lesson in Graphic Design

This year I've been exploring different artist careers with my 8th graders. Graphic Design was a clear choice. There are 100's of fun projects that I could have done and my love of typography and minimalist graphics brought me 1000s of ideas (with a little help from Pinterest). Then I remembered seeing this series of book covers http://www.sinch.us/classic-childrens-stories-vol-1/  and a project was born. Also a fun way to tie in some of those literacy goals!

My students were asked to come up with a new cover for one of their favorite books. I started them off with a lesson on typography and layout,  and let them run from there. They had a choice of colored pencil, paper layering or collage as their materials. My 8th graders just love open ended projects!  Instead of the classic book description on the back cover, I had the students include their artist statements.

Sorry for the shiny photos. Some students used mod-podge to give their book cover a glossy look

Charlotte's Web creator used newspaper words to create a web, which symbolized Charlotte's use of words taken from newspaper in the book

One of the only students who decided to do the inside folds as well :)

I encouraged my students to create a layout that flowed well between the front, spine and back portions of their covers. If you're interested in trying this project in your class, here are the dimensions I gave my students for creating the different components of the cover. Fit standard book for display :) Add extra inches to the length (20") if you want your students to have extra space for practice. I left this a choice for my students.