New+Moon+Book+Cover+Analysis

= **﻿Judging a Twilight by Its Cover:** = **The Remixing of Stephenie Meyer's //New Moon// Through Cover Art**

**Analysis**
A book cover is essentially a piece of visual text designed to attractively represent the written text that it encases. The job of the front cover of any book is to visually stimulate and intrigue viewers in an effort to engage them and turn them into a reader. If the visual aspect of the front cover is boring, the viewer will move on to another book on the shelf. If the cover is attractive, but misrepresents the written text, then both the author and publisher lose credit with the reader and potential future sales.

New Moon is the second book in the New York Times bestselling Twilightseries by Stephanie Meyer. There are three book covers available in America for this same text. The first cover, featuring a bloody flower, is the original. After the movie version of this text was released, two more book covers were released featuring images of the attractive young adults chosen to portray the three main characters. All three covers feature eye catching and thought provoking images designed to pique the viewer’s interest, engage her with the visual text, and turn her into a reader of the written text. When the three images are examined together, they reveal a shift from the cover image as an independent visual text to the cover image as a remix that is an integrated part of a much larger visual text that encompasses film and other visual media in an attempt to increase viewer engagement and increase sales.



The original book cover for //New// Moon, while simple, is far from plain or boring. The central image is a flower that is eye catching not only because of the obsidian background that makes the image pop, but also because of the odd shape to the petals that are unfamiliar to many in the primary audience: teenage girls. This flower is a ruffled tulip. Where the author did have influence on the cover art for the first novel in the series, the cover for //New Moon// was designed without her input by the publishing company. A rose might have been a more obvious choice for the cover of a love story, but this ruffled tulip is not only intriguing, it is steeped in meaning for those who know the art of floriography, expressing meaning through flowers. Traditionally white tulips are associated with newness and purity while red tulips represent true love and are even part of a Persian legend of eternal love.

In this image, we see the white, pure Tulip with petals that are delicate and reminiscent of the feathers of a frail prey bird stained red with blood from its predator's attack. The dark red viscous liquid weighs down the petals, causing part of the flower to break off and drop to the ground, in a manner reminiscent of blood dripping from a wound. The life of this tulip appears to slowly drain away in front of the reader's eyes, its purity tainted by a deadly love.

While the image of the dying flower dominates the cover; the title of the book itself is discreetly tucked along the upper edge. The title of the book is //New Moon,// yet there is no moon shown. The only indication of night aside from the title itself is the obsidian background, suggesting there is no light save for what illuminates the flower, perhaps the light is the purity of the tulip, shining forth in a dark world void of any external source of light as the sun rests on the other side of the world.

The layout of the front cover creates a loose Z formation that many graphic designers use due to the way the Z layout complements the eye's natural movement. While the drooping ruffled tulip creates a zag connecting the title and author's name, it is not the pattern that the eye initially follows. The eye is immediately drawn inward to the bright tulip that dominates the cover both in size and in contrast to the dark background. No, the Z shape here does not initially lead the eye, but it does give the viewer an established pattern to follow when looking for the book title and author's name.

The image of the bloody flower purposefully dominates this cover. As a book cover, this image must tie in to the text it portrays otherwise the reader will feel betrayed. Considering the cover in relation with the book's text, the tulip becomes a symbol for the protagonist Bella Swan. She is the young, pure girl in the middle of the as yet darkest part of her young life as she suffers heart break at the hands of her emotionally sensitive and emotionally unavailable immortal boyfriend Edward Cullen.

The Twilight series exploded onto the teen literary market and was turned into a series of films a la Harry Potter. Once the films were released, new covers for the books were released. Where the first cover depicted the blood stained ruffled tulip, the post movie release book covers portray the dynamic between the three main characters.



Indeed, the 2009 release of a live-action filmic counterpart to Meyer’s phantasmagorical soap-opera sequel compelled Little, Brown and Company publishers to produce a //New Moon// text whose cover composition could dispense the aura of enigma, abstraction, and shadow pervading its visual predecessor: an image-scape which could converse with not only new readers—“virgins” not yet succumbed to the author’s second vampiric dalliance—but also veteran //Twilight Saga// book and movie fans. Thus, the novel’s film tie-in cover displaces the primary visual shorthand of an obsidian background and tulip-bedecked foreground with a vibrant, though brown-hued, portraiture of characters, locations, and objects siphoned from the narrative, depicting protagonist Bella Swan (actress Kristen Stewart) held in embrace by childhood friend Jacob Black (actor [|Taylor Lautner]) as the reflected, ethereal visage of her lover Edward Cullen (actor Robert Pattinson) observes the pair from dark side of the moon. The text’s title—as a hermeneutic indication of Bella’s impending confrontation with both Cullen and Black’s propositions of amorous affection—receives an explicit sense of pictorial resonance through the new cover; Swan’s vampiric love, while cast within the waning lunate sphere’s celestial boundaries and relegated to the novel’s compositional background, embodies the setting passions of //Twilight//-era Bella: an “old moon” which must bequeath its radiance to a new lunar cycle. Therefore, the rendering of Black and Swan—flanked on both sides by distant members of the boy’s werewolf brood while posited atop a skyward-pointing cliff face—also presents the viewer with a distinct depiction of rising motion, thus emphasizing the possibility of a new love triangle’s establishment in the text.

However, filmic influence on Meyer’s novel also pervades //New Moon//’s sleeve, inviting the reader to approach the text with a new context: a context drawn between page and screen. For as the cover reveals the young protagonist and her half-canine protector’s nestle, the composition casts particular emphasis on the latter member’s ornate, circular tattoo—an adornment introduced in [|Chris Weitz]’s film adaptation, yet never mentioned in Meyer’s text—placing Black’s bared (right) bicep to the immediate left of the image’s center. Through this arrangement, the book’s cinematic progeny tattoos additional, self-addressed meaning across Meyer’s pages; the inclusion of new pictorial media in Bella Swan’s fantasy-scape allows the viewer to infer a possibly-new deviation in the novel’s tone and narrative certainty. This ambiguity thus exacerbates the frustrated, confused mien borne by Swan (as pictured on the cover), accentuating her tilted head—downcast, yet oriented in both of her amours’ direction—and curled left hand—whose fingers block, with care, the advance of Black’s embrace. Not even the immortal, (almost) omniscient Cullen can gaze upon his love’s dramatic intentions with unremitted faculty and vision, for his left eye remains obscured by the title’s brilliant lettering; the alabaster youth cannot see beyond the “new moon.” Though Meyer’s subsequent //Twilight// saga entries—published more than a year before Wietz’s film and //New Moon//’s movie tie-in edition— may have traced and mapped the swells of Swan’s amatory tempest, the revised cover re-validates this text’s romantic intrigue, asserting the protagonist’s struggle as both lover and friend to entail neither textually-preemptive redress nor readily-discernible closure.



These cinematically-linked covers have increased the already-vast popularity of //New Moon//'s tropic love story: a narrative portraying the loves, lies, and longings of a teenage girl torn between her vampire heartthrob and werewolf companion. These images draw the viewer in by creating points of entry into the story by appealing to the viewer’s sense of logic, emotion, and ethics. For without having read the story at all, a viewer is instantly made aware of a love triangle between these people. Jacob, the werewolf, stands protectively in front of Bella who seems to gaze longingly at Edward, the vampire. It is important to note that in an attempt to appeal to the pathos of the viewer, none of the characters appears in their “monster” forms. It would be harder for a viewer to connect with the love story if we saw vampire fangs dripping with blood or a werewolf lovingly gazing at Bella. Viewers are much more likely to empathize and connect with the human forms of these characters.

The background colors and elements also draw the viewer in emotionally. The brightness of the moon evokes a sense of hope as it stands in contrast to the mysterious, deep, dark, foggy, woods. Jacob’s protective stance in front of Bella with his fist clenched also emotionally draws the viewer into the story the characters have to tell. Edward looking forlornly over his shoulder, looks guilty. Do you feel sorry for him? Are you curious about why he might feel guilty? If so, the image has done its job. It has created a point of entry for you into the story.

This image also employs the principle of the Z eye movement by encouraging you to look at Edward’s face, then to Bella’s and down to Jacob’s clenched fist and finally off to the right again. The pattern helps to create a sense of movement and appeal to the emotions by making the viewer wonder what is going on.

At first glance, the viewer might question why anyone would be in the deep dark woods so late at night. This is a good question. And if a viewer finds herself asking it, then she has passed through another point of entry and is engaged in the story. And if after further thought, one is lead to conclude that if a girl is going to be in the woods at least it is a good idea to have a big strapping man to protect her, then this image has invited you into another point of entry by appealing to your logos. This point also reinforces cultural beliefs in patriarchy and gender roles that relegate women to helpless maidens who must be saved and protected by men with bulging muscles.

The image attempts to appeal to the ethos of the viewer through the use of color, countenance and clothes. The characters are teenagers who in most popular images are depicted in brightly colored, trendy, clothes with carefree smiles on their faces. In this image, the teenagers look different. They are wearing dark practical clothes. They are to be taken seriously. They are not flashing carefree smiles at the viewer. They must be different kinds of teenagers. The serious scowls on their faces invite the viewer to believe that finding out about their story might not be a waste of time. These teenagers have a serious story to tell because they themselves are serious.

In today’s world, if an image can provide several points of entry-enticing bits of information that lures a viewer into wanting to engage the material- then it has done its job. These remixed covers to the novel //New Moon// manage to create several entry points by making enticing appeals to the viewer’s logical mind, heart and sense of morality. These images both pique the interest of and textually engage the viewer.

Related Areas of Inquiry
What makes a book cover compelling? What effect do non-visually driven book covers have on the viewer? Is there a difference in the effect of realistic vs. non-realistic images on book covers? What effect does a bad cover (one that is not engaging) have on a good book?

**Research/Helpful Links**
Book Cover Archive Designing a Book Cover Elements of Good Cover Design Student Book Cover Creator

You may also wish to review our short "works cited" page.

**Teacher Suggestions**
Students need to be aware of the intent and consequences of all images that they see. Students are daily bombarded with an increasing number of images online, on TV, on the way to school, and even in schools themselves as T-shirts, notebooks, book covers, and even classroom motivational posters all use visual rhetoric as a way to communicate. Examining book covers is a way to teach the student to think critically not only about the images they see, but also about the thought processes behind choosing said graphic depictions to grace the cover of a book and represent that text to the world. Examining pre- and post-movie versions of book sleeves prompts the students to think about why the changes were made and what effect those changes have on the message that the image is communicating. Choosing jacket facings related to a popular novel or movie is another way of engaging the student in the lesson: hook them with relevant, familiar material and then make them think.

Potential lesson plans can include students completing an analysis of a book cover or using their new information about book covers to design their own book cover.