These were the original covers before I started. I used all the text that already came with all of the books.

My audience for this redesign consists of the fanbase who already know and love either the book or the show and potential new readers, who like me in the beginning never gave it a second thought. Which is the reason for making this book series a collectors edition.

My goals for this redesign is to capture new reader attention, create something unique for the fanbase, create a better hierarchy, and create some more memorable imagery.

In order to get a feeling of what other designers have done I took something old and created a modern twist to it. One of the first book designers I gravitated to was Peter Mendelsund.

In the beginning I began by looking at different cultural references of the time both main characters where from. Since Jamie, the main character from the 1700’s, grew up in Scotland I began looking at Scottish Landscapes and the tartan from his clan. Since Claire, the main character from the 1900’s, grew up in England I started looking at different technologies from that time and old architectural references to England itself.

As I went along with my thesis progress I created an image map to explore ways of representing time travel. Naturally when I thought of time travel I thought of movement, futuristic looking objects, and time machines. More abstractly I started thinking of the layers of sediment that form mountains and artifacts that were created along time ago but have stood the test of time and can still be observed today.

I began playing with these representations in a more abstract way and was trying to get across the idea of bending time. I created these by taking stock imagery and using the liquify tool in Photoshop. 

Stepping away from the abstract ideas for awhile I began working on my illustration skills. Then I began to take these illustrations and transposing them with different objects to represent time

After experimenting with these ideas I began digging deeper into the root of the story. These were the beginning of my initial sketches of the covers while using the theme of herbs as an imprint. Each cover consists of an herb that represents the storyline of each book in some way and has a medical instrument that came from Claire's time in the World War II and the 60's. The imprints of the herbs were made by placing each herb in ink and then putting it through Photoshop. Since a photograph and an imprint is a moment in time, it is meant to show time travel in that aspect as well as the objects themselves representing their time. I chose to represent herbs since the main part of Claire's character is helping people in need since she was a nurse in World War II.

I then started to work on the interactive section of my thesis and started by thinking of ways to represent the herbs that Claire used in the books in either a take away card, or an infographic that folded out from the book.

While I thought about it more, I thought it might be nice to give the viewers more historical information about each of the herbs she used, and what they actually did with them in that time. This time I thought it might be nice to include actual seeds of that herb in the book, which is why I came to the conclusion of seed packets. Each herb on the seed packets relates to the herb on each cover and was chosen to symbolize the events in that book. 

As I went on creating the flat illustrations, they were not working as a system with the dimensional aspect of the books. The flat illustrations also didn't allude to being an impression, therefore not accomplishing my original goal of time travel so they were changed into something that had more dimensionality.

Lavender is meant as a calming herb and is meant to help you sleep. However, the herb has a more sinister take in the book since it is used in the presents of violence and rape which happens in book one. Thyme was used in World War II to disinfect wounds and since book two includes the battle of Culloden it alludes to war and infection. Mint was and still is used to sooth an upset stomach. Since the one of the main characters in the third book gets extremely sea sick this is meant to embody the feeling he has when they travel to Jamaica in the third book. Lastly, Sage was used by the Native Americans as a spiritual cleanser and since Claire gets instructions of how to use different herbs by the Cherokee, sage is meant to represent this part of book four. 

In the end, the last couple images are the final results of this thesis.

From left to right this image is meant to highlight the unboxing process. Step one is what the box and the sleeve look like together on the shelf. Step two is what the box would look like after you take off the sleeve. Lastly, step three shows how the books would look after the top of the box is taken off. The first thing you would see would be the spines of the books standing out.

This image was taken as inspiration for the box above. This was in reference to the apothecary brief cases of the time that doctors used to carry around from house to house to help the sick. Claire also gets one like this from Jamie. This is the reason behind choosing a sleeve and for having layers to get to the books themselves since the books take the place of the herbs that a doctor would put on a shelf.

The covers are supposed to be more abstract than the seed packets in order to draw the reader in. When you open the book the seed packet will be inside to give the viewer more information and relate to the herb on the cover.