• US$120

• 32 designs

• 9 designers

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Book Cover Design Brief

The book synopsis is:

The Safety Zone follows the lives of a nine year old Japanese boy and an eight year old Chinese girl who meet in Shanghai in 1925, during the turbulent years between the two World Wars.

The prologue begins with a Jewish American couple who have hired a Nazi hunter to track down a German in 1950.

In 1925, we see how the children meet, learn each other’s language, argue, and eventually fall in love. As the Second World War begins in Asia, they are separated and each becomes part of their nation’s fighting machine. But when they serendipitously meet twice more, they realize that their feelings for each other are far greater than their commitment to the war, so they decide to escape. They seek the aid of John Rabe, a true historical figure. He is a German who has been living in China since before the First World War, and who reluctantly joined the Nazi Party solely to receive funding for his wife’s school and to further his career.

In the end, we learn that our heroes escaped from China by assuming the identities of a Jewish couple who perished in the Holocaust, and have honored them by keeping their names and religion. They are also the couple introduced in the prologue, and that the Nazi they were searching for is, none other than, John Rabe.


What I envisioned for the cover is the drawing that the nine year old girl drew of them surrounded by the flags of the four governments that are controlling their lives: the Chinese Nationalists, the Chinese Communists, the Japanese Empire, and Nazi Germany. I did have a vision of the flags being slightly blurred, as if to indicate motion around the drawing of the children.

I am not a good artist, but I’ll upload two concept images of what I have in mind, although I’m open to any other ideas.

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