On the Road
a redesign
On the Road by American writer Jack Kerouac is a classic novel based on the travels of Kerouac and his friends adventuring across the United States. It is considered a defining work of the Beat Generation full of jazz, alcohol, writing, girls, and drugs.
When the book was originally released, The New York Times praised it as…
“the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as ‘beat,’ and whose principal avatar he is.”
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked On the Road 55th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. The novel was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. If you haven’t read On the Road…DO IT.
Figuring out Kerouac.
Before even thinking about this redesign, I decided to gather more information about Jack Kerouac himself, and of course read On the Road. A common symbol throughout the book? The color red.
Route 6 — “red line across America”
“Besides their names he wrote curses in red ink.”
“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was…”
My favorite anecdote from the book, which summarizes the book as a whole in my opinion:
“…because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center-light pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’”
The cover.
I chose to illustrate as many significant elements and symbols in the book as I could think of. Some of them include: cigarettes, pills, a bra, weed, lips, cotton, whiskey, beer, the United States, a woman, panties, paper, a bus, apple pie, the sun, grapes, a saxophone, a Cadillac, an upside-down flag, ice cream, and a typewriter.
The red dotted line weaving in and out of all of these elements symbolizes Route 6.
The barcode is the New York City skyline.
