"Independent Reading Project"

This is an alternative book cover I did for the book Fallen Angels written by Walter Dean Myers. This book is about a 17 year old African-American high school graduate Richie who decides to join the Army fresh out of high school. This is during the Vietnam War, however, he does not think he will actually be deployed to Vietnam because of rumors of peace. So, I picked a picture of war helicopters that were first used in Vietnam for the top. This is an icon for the Vietnam war. Since the picture was a lighter color I used a black text. The font I found on dafont.com and thought it worked well with the theme. I used a double exposure technique for both Vietnam and the United States. Within the countries is a picture of race riots in Harlem during this time. In the book, Richie's younger brother writes to him about riots happening in Harlem because a white police officer killed a black teenager. I used a grey background for most of the cover. I contrasted this with white text. I found a grainy texture online and used this with a low opacity to give it an aged, historical feel to combine with the black, white, and grey.