Tess Gerritsen

In my last year on my B-TEC National Diploma we had to read a crime novel and redesign a cover for the book. After looking around at a variety of crime novels I decided to look at Tess Gerritsens books. After reading ‘Bloodstream’ I enjoyed the way she wrote and read more of her books, each of her books I have read have had graphically simple front covers and I admire they as they look very striking and eye catching.

I picked this book up as soon as I saw it as the colours stood out so much. The neon blue against the natural blood red was such a contrast and the embossed sections highlighted this even more. I thought the typeface was quite simple and effective and the title font reminded me of that an old typewriter would produce.



This was the second book of Gerritsen’s that I read. I think the simplicity of the cover and the authors name font complement each other well and the colour balance also shows this. The graphic imagery is plain and cryptic and you would have to read the book to find out why the image was used.



I think the balance between image and text is good but I think that the image could be a little more imaginative. I think the eyes on the image don't look very realistic and the image doesn't look very professional, as it’s quite a clichéd image.



This is the book cover I developed and designed for the front cover of the book. It is a photograph of the inside of a red glass and I thought it was a good representation of blood as I thought the colour and the shape of the glass were reminiscent of blood. I think this simple image is effective without going into too much detail.



This image is another cover that I designed for the front cover of the book as a back up. I don't think this imagery is as effective as the other cover as it is too obvious and clichéd. I like the font I used but again I think it is quite a stereotypical choice for a crime/thriller book.