Work/Editorial Design
Noughts & Crosses
Book cover and editorial system exploring racial division and social inequality through high-contrast symbolism.
- Designer
- Archie Durrant
- Role
- Editorial & Art Direction
- Year
- 2024
- Institution
- AUB
The Brief
A conceptual editorial brief to design a new book cover for Malorie Blackman’s Noughts & Crosses. I aimed to visually explore the novel’s complex themes of racial division and social inequality without relying on literal illustration.
My Approach
I avoided literal illustration to focus on high-contrast symbolism. The overlapping lipstick marks serve as a poignant symbol of the novel’s fraught romance and social division. By weaving subtle textures, like fingerprints and faint stains, around stark typography, I aimed to imply the human cost behind the political conflict.
The cover’s bold design, featuring crosses and noughts in striking black and white, evokes both the violence that permeates the world of the book and the passionate connections between characters. Stark white space offers a moment of breath and hope amid the conflict. Echoes of African-inspired visuals provide context to the alternate-history setting, where the Aprican Empire colonised Europe 700 years earlier, grounding the cover in Blackman’s vision of class structure and systemic inequality.
Typography that suggests both vulnerability and strength ensures the cover communicates emotional depth. The mix of rough and clean fonts mirrors the book’s core themes: conflict, love, and division. This minimalistic approach lets the restrained palette and symbolic imagery communicate urgent themes without spelling them out.
Conceptual student project. Not an official commission for the publisher or author.