Driven by my love of books and design, I embarked on a rebranding project for three novels that profoundly impacted me—each chosen for its ability to reshape my perspective as a reader.
Donna Tartt’s The Secret History introduced me to the intoxicating allure of dark academia in high school, forever altering my literary tastes. Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart resonated not just as a fan of Japanese Breakfast, but for its raw portrayal of grief and identity, mirroring my own experiences as an Asian American. And Mia Alvar’s In the Country—one of the first books I read by a Filipino author—left me spellbound with its unflinching stories of diaspora, a cultural reflection I’d long craved.
My redesigns aimed to visually amplify what made these books unforgettable: their mood, emotional depth, and cultural authenticity, ensuring they’d beckon readers with the same magnetic pull they once had on me.
CRYING IN H MART
by Michelle Zauner
Crying in H Mart is a radiant exploration of identity, grief, and the healing power of food. With raw honesty and humor, Zauner chronicles her journey from cultural disconnection whilst building her music career to profound reconciliation through food and her mother's illness. My visual interpretation features a leaking kimchi jar - representing both overflowing grief and the preservation of cultural memory. The accompanying photograph of Zauner with her mother immediately signals this as a work of intimate nonfiction, a crucial distinction from my initial assumption that this was fiction.
IN THE COUNTRY
by Mia Alvar
This novel is composed of nine stories detailing the experiences of different Filipino men and women and deals with the themes of displacement and loss. For the cover, I chose an image by Crystal Huie, an important photo documenter of the historic Manilatown neighborhood in San Francisco and International Hotel community of the 1970s. It is a historic instance of forced eviction that not only reflects the novel's themes, but also helps set the scene for the reader. I also decided to depict the shape of the Philippine islands in a pixelated, oversimplified way to convey the characters' distance from home but to also represent the different identities they have to take on.
THE SECRET HISTORY
by Donna Tartt
Donna Tartt’s The Secret History unravels the dark symbiosis of intellect and corruption, as a cloistered group of classics students—seduced by their professor’s charisma and Greek ideals—morph their pursuit of beauty into moral decay. What begins as bacchanalian escapism curdles into calculated violence, binding them in a web of guilt that fractures friendships and sanity.
The cover embraces a minimalist dark academia aesthetic, anchored by a confrontational image of Dionysus—mirroring the novel’s central bacchanalian chaos. A radial blur distorts the statue, evoking both intoxication and moral unraveling. Serif and script typography nod to classical scholarship, while a subtle blood splatter hints at the violence beneath the intellectual veneer.
