Sano Ichiro

Sano Ichiro is a series of 18 mystery novels written by Laura Joh Rowland. The main character, Sano Ichiro, is a samurai and detective. This project explores book cover design, layout, and illustration.

The approach to the illustrations are a combination of analgue (brush and ink) and digital (coloured in photoshop). Because the notion of a samurai detective was non-existent in feudal Japan, I was inspired to combine ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ techniques for the book covers. The book cover illustration are full spreads done as individual ink drawings. The interior layouts of the book include Japanese for the chapter titles with English on the side.

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