1Q84 MURAKAMI

1Q84 MURAKAMI

02 + 03

IMAGE MAKING

TV POSTERS

BOOK COVERS

01

CHALLENGE

Reimagine Haruki Murakami’s novel 1Q84 through a series of book covers and TV adaptation posters.

APPROACH

I identified the novel’s key themes of surveillance, isolation, and blurred morality. I took four black and white photographs, each exploring a different aspect of these themes, and manipulated them in Photoshop to emphasise the story’s unsettling, fragmented world. To translate the images into book covers and TV posters, I used consistent framing to create ample blank space around the subjects, reinforcing the theme of isolation, alongside minimal typographic placement and a restrained colour palette to unify the series and position the book title as the focal point, as it is the only coloured element. My approach was to simplify the design in order to intrigue viewers with unsettling imagery, transporting them into Murakami’s unusual world and encouraging them to interact further with this new world.

FINAL CONCEPT

For the first cover, I pinched the photograph of a building into the centre and overlaid a translucent eye. The converging lines of the building create the illusion that everything leads back to this inescapable, watchful eye, symbolising the constant surveillance the characters feel and the tension it creates between free will and control. In the second cover, I overexposed the face to remove any identifying features, conveying the main character’s loss of identity to both others and herself, as well as her inability to communicate. The blurred distortion conveys the unclear boundaries of justice and morality in this world, leaving citizens dehumanised and isolated. For the third cover, I reduced the two main characters to shadows standing in front of a looming face that signifies the scale of controlling surveillance and how it begins to diminish people’s individuality. I also photoshopped the two moons present in the world to further anchor this scene as one from the book. For the final cover, I created overlapping circular frames resembling the view through binoculars to reinforce the theme of being watched. One circle was subtly obscured to reference the presence of the two moons, suggesting that two worlds can initially appear similar but, on closer inspection, are unsettlingly altered. Overall, the series immerses viewers in distorted imagery within a world not unlike our own, urging them to critically interrogate our society, where these themes are less visible but still ingrained, and to consider how they affect our individuality.

02

2024

1Q84

Murakami ReimaginED