Great Gatsby Book Cover Analysis

For my final assignment I created a cover for The Great Gatsby using photshop. This is a project I really enjoyed doing and it let me test the knowledge I had about photoshop, and about the symbolism in the novel. I wanted to keep the cover rather uncrounded and simple while packing in a lot of this symbolism. I did not include the authors name F. Scott Fitzgereald on my cover because I didn't want to draw the attention away from the images and colors on the cover. I figured that if this was a real book cover they could probably just pt his name on the spine of the book. This project was really enjoyable for me and I beleive it turned out pretty well.

Now we will dive into the symbolism on my cover. First, we will look at the title of the
It is representative of the parties he threw, and the alcohol the guests drank. In large quatities alcohol is never a very good idea, but as we can see with the way Gatsby's guests act especially when the party dies down, alcohol may help s have a good time but it never lets us escape our problems and can actually make them worse. Alcohol had a big part in Fitzgeralds life. He had a problem when it came to alcohol and it does not surprise me that he displays alcohol this way in The Great Gatsby. Another thing I used to represent Gatsby's party are the colors up in the top right side. I used these colors to represent the lights that I imagine lit up Gatsby's house like a carnival at every party. I used red, blue, purple, yellow and an orange yellow. Red represents excitement, passion, and war, which are all included in The Great Gatsby. Blue represents confidence and water. I feel like too many characters in this story lacked confidence but put on a facade of confidance. Water is very
On my cover you can see that there is a green triangle. I included this as a representation of the love triangle with Tom, Daisy and Gatsby ( you could definitly also include Myrtle.) and the jealousy and misfortune of it all. It also is reflective of the Green light that Gatsby reaches towards at night. In the background you can see the inclusion of the yatch on the ocean. I incuded this to represent Gatsby's origin with Dan Cody. The most forefront image is clearly the woman. This is how I visualized Daisy. Blond with her white clothes and bright red lips. You can see she looks as though there is a fog over her face. I used this as a sort of veil over her fave. Almost as if the billowing White curtains in chapter one have blown over her face. This represents a sort of disconnection with her character. I nver felt like I connect with or understood Daisy. She aslways seemed to have this sheer barrier over her that didn't block out who she really was but blurred it. Like there was detail we couldn't see becuase of this veil that blocked us from seeing them. So I put this feeling into a visual source. I also brightened her eyes and lips. The lips becuase the red really represents the romantic situation she is causght up in between Gatsby and Tom. I brightened the eye to include the “eyes are always watchng” theme that seems to eb in The great Gatsby. It also shows how she sees through Tom about his relationships with other