A Separate Peace is a coming-of-age story about a boy named Gene as he struggles with his emotions, mainly jealousy and guilt. His jealousy comes out when he causes his best friend Finny to fall from a tree, resulting in a broken leg. The rest of the novel then focuses on the guilt he feels about what he did to Finny.

As this novel contains many symbols, I decided to use three of the important events and what they symbolize as my art for my book covers. For Art Nouveau, I decided to use the tree as the main design because it would best represent the art style and the novel, as the tree is where Gene’s jealousy comes to its highest point. For Plakastil, I chose the pink shirt design because I felt it would best compliment the reductive style. Finny wears this shirt against dress code, but he does not get in trouble. The shirt not only symbolizes Gene’s jealousy but also his guilt over Finny. Then, after Gene breaks Finny’s leg, it makes him feel immense guilt over what he had done. Finally, for Bauhaus, I chose to symbolize Finny’s broken leg with the whole and broken lines for an abstract representation.

I created the Art Nouveau design by drawing the tree in an art program and then manipulating it in Photoshop. For the Plakastil, I used Illustrator to make the basic shapes for the design. Finally, I did the Bauhaus design in Illustrator. I played with lines, rectangles, and triangles to make an abstract cover.