Book Design (University Project)

This is a hypothetical book design for Harold Schechter’s Deviant, the story of deranged murderer Ed Gein. The cover’s goal was to instill the viewer with an uneasy curiosity that drives them to take a look inside. The landscape depicted is the vast bleakness of central Wisconsin where Gein’s crimes took place, and the title, the word Deviant, is eye-catching and contrasts the brown of the earth it’s buried in. Rhetorically, this cover design represents the way Gein presented a boring, inoffensive “Oddball” persona to the townsfolk in order to hide his deeply disturbing habits.

The inside matter is designed to be simple and readable but with small features here and there that mesh with the grim tone of the content to impart the same uncanny, creeping dread that Harold Schechter’s excellent description is famous for. I created a Bates motel-esque graphic for use on the table of contents page and as a motif throughout, both because the movie Psycho was based on the actions of Ed Gein, and because Gein’s real house was so physically representative of his mental illness.