HELEN NOWELL illustration

Lord of the Flies cover by Helen Nowell

Lord of the Flies cover by William Golding

When developing the look of the characters I wanted to make sure they were as true to the book as possible. 

Jack was described as being’ tall, thin and bony’ with red hair and freckles. When Jack paints his face he has one cheek and one eye socket in white, red clay over the other side of his face and slashed black clay from his ear to his jaw – so I tried to reflect this in his design.







On the cover I wanted to convey the seriousness of Jack’s character. I also wanted to hint at his aggressive and confrontational nature which is why, on the cover, Jack meets the viewer’s gaze head on.


Lord of the Flies inside cover pages. Non-tribal front inside pages by Helen Nowell




Lord of the Flies inside cover pages. Non-tribal front inside pages by Helen Nowell

Inside the Front Cover of the Hardback Edition

Hardback Front Cover 

Lord of the Flies inside cover pages. Tribal back by Helen Nowell

Inside the Back Cover of the Hardback Edition 


The inside design of both the Front and Back Covers. The idea of the design was to show the change the young boys go through from the start to the end of the book.


Ink inset pages

Both the conch and Piggy’s glasses seem to reflect the notion of civilisation and it’s destruction – as the conch (which helped to bring about order at the start of the book) becomes ignored and Piggy’s glasses get brocken and finally stolen. As both the conch and Piggy’s glasses seem to be key objects I wanted to feature them within the designs.

conch and glasses from storyline of Lord of the Flies

Inside the Back Cover of the Hardback Edition 

When reading Lord of the Flies I found it easy to forget just how young the boys were until right at the end of the book.  In my character designs I wanted them to look young which makes the things they do all the more shocking.


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