This is my Adult Fiction entry for the Penguin Student Design Award 2017. My book cover is symbolic of the destruction of innocence by prejudice, a strong theme seen throughout the book. The cover depicts negative film images of 1930s rural, Post- Depression America, the time and location in which To Kill A Mockingbird is set.
My idea comes from the discovery of an archive of 175,000 images showing post-Depression America at its most desperate. These images have only just been released by the American government.
The negatives have been killed off with an ominous hole-punch to prevent less desirable images from being used. The black hole is the handiwork of Roy Stryker, the director of the FSA’s documentary photography program. He was responsible for hiring photographers and dispatching them across the country to document the struggles of the rural poor. If a photo was not to Stryker's liking, he would not simply set it aside — he would puncture the negative with a hole puncher, thus “killing” it. The hole punch looks like a bullet hole which links back to when Atticus shoots the mad dog in the street.
I feel this destruction of perfectly good photographs represents how certain characters were killed or damaged through the prejudice found in Maycomb. I went through thousands of the images until I found ones which I felt represented characters or scenes in the book. The final negatives I chose for my cover show Tom Robinson, the three children (Scout, Jem and Dill) and finally Boo Radley's house. I also feel that the black and white photos are reminiscent of the imagery associated with the original 1960s movie.
