Situation:
A competition was put out to write literature for boys in the age of 11-14 years. The purpose of the competition was to get boys to gain more interest in literature."

My friend Noa, who currently studies literature at Kent university in England, suggested that we should participate together - he would create the story and i would make the illustrations.

Story:
The story was basically a love story surrounding three boys' attempt to help one of the boys win over his love.
The story is written in a realistic and yet playful tone where the three boys come up with an almost Sherlock Holmes like plan to get the girl.
Here is a short excerpt depicting the illustratoin of the boys smoking:
”Jaja, rolig nu,” lyder det mumlende fra Asger, mens han tænker over, at det vel egentlig er lidt barnligt stadig at have et hemmeligt mødested i syvende klasse. På den anden side er det jo hemmeligt, så der er nok ikke nogle der finder ud af, at det er barnligt. Og det er heller ikke på den måde barnligt. De har en halv pakke cigaretter de har stjålet fra Asgers storebror, en kasse med blade og et beskidt tæppe Lukas har fundet i hans garage. Det er bare en måde at gemme sig lidt for det hele på."

Creative solution:
I decided that, given the down to earth story, a realistic style would fit the illustrations best. Choosing to key scenes from the short story, i made two illustrations in a both realistic but also witty tone.

To give the illustrations a more weighted fell, i used a variety of colored shapes to color the background and in this way, make each illustration work like en entity which did a lot to remove the sense of them just being line drawings. At the same time, the shapes help tell the story by slightly indicating part of the story.

The last illustration i did was for the frontpage.
I wanted this to work more as a cover of a book than an illustration of the story. I decided to keep it simple, ditching the super detailed style from the illustrations.
Instead i used the idea from the background shapes from the illustrations. This way, the frontpage became more suggestive without giving away a lot.
_____

My friend is called Noa, and currently studies Literature at Kent University. Check out his stuff right here:
http://borgerligtubehag.blogspot.com/

'Fight Club book cover'

Background:
The book cover was my contribution to the Metro-literature competition of 2011.
Metro-literature 2011 is a competition where the best entries in ‘short stories’, ‘poetry’ and ‘illustrations’ are put together in a booklet and distributed freely in the metro stations of Copenhagen.
These booklets would be in an edition of 500.000 copies distributed over different metro stations.
I choose to participate in the ‘Illustrations’ category. The rules was to simply make a cover illustration for a book that you liked. I choose to make a cover illustration for the cult classic Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. The winners of this category would then have to make a new illustration, for one of the winners in the short story category - and this would then be the final product to be distributed.

The story:
Fight Club revolves around a guy, 'Jack', who, to escape his monotonous life, starts a 'fight club' with a guy named Tyler. A club where men, tired of their life as grey suits, can let go of everything and just fight. Jack too is a suit whos life is controlled by IKEA furniture, advertising, television and his boss. Tyler is the polar opposite. A pure Alpha Male.
Jack starts a life with Tyler as a constant mate. They do everything together - but it's always Tyler who speaks for Jack. Throughout the story, Tyler proves to be Jack himself. Jack has, in his attempt to escape his hopeless life created Tyler in his own head. The perfect version of himself. The skitzofrenia is so powerfull, that when Jack sleeps, 'Tyler's awakes' and acts on behalf of Jack. Hence Tyler takes more and more control over the mind of Jack.

Creative solution:
I tried to keep the illustration as simple as possible by using one idea to cover several aspects of the story. The main object is the yellow hand controlling a man in a suit. Both symbolize several things.
The hand is a symbol of Tyler's power over Jack, and his indirect control of his actions.
At the same time it symbolizes all the things that are keeping Jack down and indirectly controlled Jacks life before he created Tyler – job, advertising and his furniture addiction. And for those who know the story, the hand also becomes a symbol of the enormous power Tyler gains by the end of the book, where he literally controls a small army of working class men in grey suits.
This way, the hand and its puppet master control of the ‘suit’ becomes an all embodying symbol of every stage in the basically three parted story and is essentially a picture of the almost ‘dystopian’ world that Fight Club depicts. At the same time the hand of the puppet master is a strong symbol of a trend of materialism that might be as relevant now, as it was back when the book was published.

Result:
The illustration was chosen as one of the finalists for the Metro-Literature competition of 2011. If it will be a winner is still pending.

Link to metro-litteratur.dk
http://www.metro-litteratur.dk/?p=376