Mock cover art for The War of the Worlds

Graphic art student Tim Phelan has created some interesting mock cover art for a series of novels by seminal science fiction author H.G. Wells to be published by the fictitious house Spine Publishing. Phelan adopted the Franklin Gothic family of typeface and faced some unique challenges in completing the project. Here’s how he describes his cover for The War of the Worlds, pictured above:

“I drew inspiration from the Orson Welles' radio adaptation that panicked America in 1938. As extracts of the novel are written in a formal journalistic style, my starting point referenced torn newspapers and half-tone patterns. The looming radio mast on the front cover is also a slight homage to the tripods, indicating the controversy and terror created by the broadcast was purely concocted by man and not Martian.”