Ok so if you’ve been following me for a short while you’ll know I’ve been giving redesigning book covers a go – with varying levels of success. But the thing that has stayed constant is that I’ve had a lot of fun doing this.

But I felt like really challenging myself – because I’m a masochist – and so I took on a Penguin Classic. Yep – THE Penguin Classics…they are…well…classics! How the hell would I even begin to redesign these? And which book would I pick?

Read on to find out!

So I decided to choose one of my favourite classics of all time – Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy.

As always, before I start, here’s a couple of things I want to mention before I show you my work! I’m redesigning book covers for fun and to stretch my creative muscles! I am not redesigning them because:

• I think the originals are inherently bad
• I want to be a designer
• I think I can do better
• Any other negative reason you can think of
• I’m doing this for fun!

Sometimes I’ll choose covers that aren’t exactly my favourites and I want to re-imagine them. Sometimes I’ll pick covers that I absolutely adore, but want to see what I can do. Sometimes I’ll pick my favourite books. Sometimes I’ll pick books I don’t like. Sometimes I’ll pick books based on a vote over on my Instagram.

What I’m saying is this: There’ll be no rhyme or reason to my book selections! So…now that all the disclaimers are out of the way, let’s have a look at what I did for Resurrection!

Resurrection was an incredibly difficult challenge for me, the Penguin Classics are so simple, so stylish, so elegant and so…classic. I spent a lot of time banging my head on a desk trying to get my stupid, empty brain to function!

But after some swearing and staring off into space, I managed to create 3 designs that I felt could do Penguin Classics justice. I liked two of them, and the third I thought was just…ok. As always, I put it to a vote on Instagram.

Why did I choose this cover?: Resurrection is one of my favourite classics, and as this is more of a ‘series’ redesign than a single book.

Did I have an idea going in to it?: OMG no! I was legit scared of this one!

Did I like the book?: Yes, I loved this book. I know classics aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I love this one.

Are you happy with it?: Actually, yeah. 2 of them I’m really, really proud of and I’m proud of the ‘series’ redesign in general.

Here’s the orignal cover:

And here are my three designs!

They were whittled down to these two:

I have to admit, the earrings cover was my favourite – I personally feel like it fit the story better – but a vote is a vote, and the people spoke.

Now let’s see how it did when going up against the orignal!

I was OVERWHELMED when I saw this result! I couldn’t believe it! It is easily the most successful cover redesign I’ve done to date!

Despite my ‘chosen’ cover not being the one to go head to head with the original, I’m still really, really proud of this one and myself for giving this a go!

As always, Im going to keep on doing this because I have a great time doing it. I have NO idea what is going to come next! But if you wanna hang around to find out that’d be great! Or you can suggest a book cover below!

(By the way – I did an interview with Micaela Alcaino – a real book designer! So go check that out too!)

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If you are interested in Resurrection you can buy it here with FREE worldwide delivery!

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