"The Giver" Book Jacket IL

Another assignment in my junior year Illustration class, this time a book jacket. I chose The Giver by Lois Lowry. For those of you who haven't read the book, here is a synopsis... this image is symbolism heavy.

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The book takes place sometime in the future when people live in communities. "Sameness" has been put in place for generations, to where everything is uniform, orderly, and controlled. People don't see color, the land around them is flat with uniform buildings and plants, they don't know what animals are, and the weather is always 72 degrees and sunny. Once members of the community are old enough to have "stirrings" (aka sexual desires) they're given medication that makes the urge disappear. Marriages are applied for and matched up by the community's committee, and each family gets one male and one female child which they apply for if they want them. Each member of the community is assigned a job at the age of 12 by the committee, and they can't do anything else except that. Books aren't allowed except for those used in school and the book of community rules which is in every household. Every household has the same pieces of furniture and are built in the exact same way. Everything is structured to the point that members of the community never make choices and are never stressed because everything is taken care of for them so they don't have to think and therefore are safe from making mistakes. This is all they've ever known.

In the community there is an elder called The Giver who retains all the memories of what the world was like before Sameness was taken over. Jonas, a child of the community, is assigned to be the new Receiver. He then starts going to The Giver who transfers all of the memories of the world into him. The memories range from pleasant things like sledding down a hill in the snow and sailing on the ocean to horrible experiences of pain, death, war and destruction. As he receives these memories, he begins to see the community around him in color.

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Now, on to the illustration. I wanted to use The Giver for this project because I wanted to play with the concept of black and white vs. color. The concept of this piece is to contrast the world of the community vs. the world that Jonas discovers through The Giver. I used the memory of sailing on the ocean because I thought I'd be able to get the most brilliant color from a marine sunset. The female figure represents Jonas's female friend, Fiona, who causes him to have his first stirring and thus first dose of the suppressant medication, and generally represents the whole aspect of having such base instincts suppressed for the sake of control. The darker gradients at the top and bottom of the piece are for text placement of the title and author.

Photoshop CS2