This is a book cover design project for Edgar Allan Poe trilogy book series: 'The Raven and Other Poems' is the collection of his poems; 'Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque' is the collection of short stories; 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket' is his only full-length novel.

When working on this project, I was asked not to use any images that directly reveal Poe, still giving the impression this is from Poe. Creating a book cover series that contains abstraction of Poe was my challenge.

My initial idea was designing book covers as straight as possible. I began to think how I could make it look exactly like Poe's without using his picture. Consequently, I used colors and the shapes that is literally related to the contents.

Black was chosen for the color of the book covers. As we know, there is no better color than black to depict Edgar Allan Poe. The shapes appeared in the cover followed the characteristics of the contents. You can find scattered sheets of paper in he cover of 'The Raven and Other Poems' as poems are usually written in one piece of paper. The cover of the short story book, 'Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque,' contains shapes of various thickness of bars. They stand for the various length of the short stories, or the various thickness of the spines. Lastly, you will find one huge rectangular shape in the cover of Poe's only full-length novel, 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.'

I hope the peculiar shapes of the covers could arise curiosity of people so that they can grab those books and read. As a book cover designer, I believe I am successful if people just grab the book and open the first page.