John Steinbeck's 'Dust Bowl TRILOGY'
Although John Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), and The Grapes of Wrath (1939) were not written in continuation of the other, this trio of books is sometimes referred to as "The Dust Bowl Trilogy." These are the three books I chose to redesign the dust jacket covers for. The main element I wanted to focus on when designing the covers was color. For each book, I used a certain color that best identified with the mood each book portrays. However the colors are gloomy and faded out, they are not bright because the mood in all three books is pessimistic and/or sorrowful. For the front covers, the illustrations are simple, focusing only on a few important elements crucial in each book while the backgrounds are almost empty to further reinforce the sad mood each book portrays.
In Dubious Battle
For this book I chose the color red for two reasons. The first is because the novel takes place at an apple orchard. The second is because many of the characters from the book belong to the "Party," (an unnamed representation of the American Communist Party), which was identified with the color red.
Of Mice and Men
As seen, the color I chose for this book is blue because a major event happened near a river. Water is usually identified with this color, but this blue has a lot of gray undertones to show the gloominess ever present in this story.
The Grapes of Wrath
By just reading the title I knew what color for this would be purple, like the color of most grapes. Not a bright, royal purple, but a grayed out, lifeless purple. Tragedy is written all over this book and the lack of brightness and saturation shows it.
