On Writing Well by William Zinsser is a guidebook on non-fiction writing. As part of a school project, I was tasked to redesign a book cover. Often, guidebooks have straightforward and unexciting covers, so with this project, my goal was to redesign the cover for more visual interest while maintaining visual coherency with the topic of non-fiction writing.

The first design uses a series of rectangles organized to appear reminiscent of words in a paragraph. The title, embedded within the rectangles, contrasts significantly to ensure it is still the main focus on the cover. Because the book was originally in 1976, a type-writer-like font was used to reflect the era and the history of typewriters as a writing tool.

The second design takes inspiration from the book's content, where William Zinsser emphasizes the countless drafting phases a writer should go through before reaching a final copy of their work. A portion of the book is shown on the cover with pen marks, resembling edits on a draft. The title is pasted over that text with a white border, allowing the title to remain a focus despite the busy background. Blue is the dominant color of the cover to evoke a sense of trust.