Senior Book Jacket: A Senior Narrative Book Jacket by Ethan Leikach (2015)

Kevin LaMont is a graduate student at Columbia University. While writing his term paper, he decides to do some in-depth research to gain a competitive edge over his peers. He crosses a line by illegally obtaining classified information from secure government files. Not too much later he finds himself arrested in a government controlled facility. After going through the usual procedures that are called for he is given a choice: ten years in prison, or a job with one of the various government agencies. Clearly a wise man, Kevin takes the latter of the offers and is absolved from any wrongdoing.

The cover illustrates how he ends up in this pickle in the first place. The laptop is there to show his prowess with technology and the glasses reflect the role of the government watching from the shadows. I chose to illustrate these two points because they are the essentials of the story. They portray the protagonist and the antagonist, each having one cover all their own. To create them, I used Illustrator for tracing purposes (the pen tool mainly) and Photoshop to give added color or effects, such as the cartoonish blur on the sunglasses.