Vanished: A Senior Narrative Book Jacket by Nicolas Faurot (2016)

Greenwood was located in the outskirts of Ohio, isolated from the rest of civilization they truly were off the grid. Everyone had a role in the town and they all relied on one another in order to prosper. The town was like any other, it had stores, houses and of course a school, but this town held a dark secret. Every year for as long as they could remember a child would vanish, no one ever knew why and nor did they question it. But they all knew it would happen, and 5 years ago that child was Alex Hail's best friend. After the death of his mother his father seemed to disappear from his life, and after his friend vanished he truly was alone. Alex was the type of kid who never looked very far into the future, he'd make rude remarks at his teachers and wasn't afraid to pick on the bigger kids, and they certainly were not afraid of him. It wasn't uncommon for Alex to put himself into a dangerous situation, but somehow he always managed to talk his way out of it. One day at school Alex did just that, taunting Jonathan, a boy twice his size. But unfortunately for him, he wouldn't be able to talk himself out of it. He runs down to the Fallen leaf lane, the last place his friend Timothy was found. Hiding in a pile of leaves he begins to hear the laughter of children and realizes it's not Jonathan's. After a flashback reminds him of when Timothy disappeared it becomes deja-vu. He begins to hear the sounds of laughter as the wind rages around him, but instead of running over to the pile of leaves that Timothy had been hiding in on that fateful day, he looks down to realize he's the one in the pile of the leaves. He is not afraid, and he does not run, but instead, vanishes.

In my cover I wanted the reader to immediately get a sense of mystery. The main character, Alex, has alienated himself from the rest of society, including his peers and family, so in the cover I wanted to create a sense of isolation. The majority of the story takes place on an eerie street lined by trees, so for my cover I wanted to highlight the trees. I was initially going to have silhouettes of children playing, but the title of the book is ''vanished'', so instead I decided to make the children ''vanish''. As for the background, I didn't want to use some pastel color, I wanted texture but I needed to keep the eerie tone. I felt the best way to do so was with a paper background, after applying this I decided to add some effects to the trees and title to make them look more like ink on the page.