White Noise is at once a caustic, yet tender, brilliant literary exploration of "American magic and dread." It examines an ever-present fear of death against the backdrop of ordinary suburban life, a sinister airborne toxic event and the numbing effects of widespread consumer capitalism.
The main theme that I wanted to illustrate was the lingering nature of the dread which hangs over much of the novel. I did this by representing the "airborne toxic event" that the characters encounter in the story, as a distorted ellipse which hangs over, but is not entirely integrated with the suburban scene below.
American suburbia is the key setting for the story and is, in the most rudimentary sense, the salient vehicle for DeLillo's commentary, which is why it felt important to represent it here. I chose to depict it in black and white, using subjects from a vintage photo archive, in order to emphasize the sense of tradition that permeates suburban living and values. In the scene, all the figures are carrying paper shopping bags, which is a nod to the novel's concern with consumerism.
I ran through many different type options, each of which gave the cover a slightly different appeal. I started with the font "Ayuthaya," for it's retro-futuristic aesthetic, which I felt matched some of the genre elements and the era of the novel. I placed the title text and the author's name on the extreme vertical ends of the image, in order to give the collage room to breathe. I also felt that wide space between the two text elements created an eerie effect, which would have been very in line with the overall tone of the novel.
My second favourite option was the glitching "Arial Black" type, which I placed in the centre of the collage, between the two converging ellipses. I felt this emphasized some of the thriller elements of the novel. In the end, however, I felt it took away too much from the sense of foreboding that characterizes so much of the story, and it's placement cluttered the main image.
The solution I finally landed on is a perfect middle-ground between these two options. I was able to employ the sci-fi/thriller-esque glitch effect, on a much cleaner looking font, and placed it in such a way so as to simultaneously give space and movement to the main image.
While the black and white photographic style works to give a sense of suburban tradition, the orange ellipse above it is meant to create contrast and denote the literal toxicity of the airborne toxic event. The cloud inside the ellipse is further distorted with a lined risographic effect as a visual portrayal of "white noise," inspired by TV "snow" and the glitching that can occur on digital screens.