Vanessa Mazic - "THE GODFATHER"

one of the most iconic stories of the modern day

This collection is part of my senior thesis project. It consisted of redesigning a book cover and creating promotional merchandise for the story.

The Godfather is one of the most recognizable stories of our time. I wanted to challenge myself with this story and see where I could take the design. The promotional pieces I chose for this story included sticker and a point of sale display. I wanted the fans of this story be able to have fun and take something away from the experience and stickers are a perfect way to further engage readers outside of the book. The point of sale was rooted in the same vein, encouraging the story to interact with the outside world and bring a piece of it to life.

Dust Jacket

Front and Back Cover

re-designing the most iconic imagery

When people think of The Godfather a very specific image comes to mind: the hand holding the marionette. The reason I chose this novel was to challenge myself and try to think outside of this ingrained image and create something different. I wanted to pick a scene or quote from the novel and try to expand upon it. I ended up with the baptism of Michael’s nephew and when Michael becomes godfather to the child and inherits the name. The cover has the image of the priest and a rosary while the negative space beneath creates the profile of a bleeding coffin. The religious undertones present in the beliefs of the characters was an interesting concept to explore since they lived a life of violence. I wanted to reflect this hypocrisy by combining religious images with images of their true lifestyle, which is why the prayer hands have blood on them and the bookmark transforms into a gun at the bottom. Scenes of the city were also paired to show how far their power extended. I also wanted the design of the point of sale to extend outside of its box and interact with the books on the shelf and above it. The empty space between the city scene and novels serves to make the books accessible for buyers to pull out and paint an evening sky over the skyline.