"The BFI Film Classics is a series of books that introduces, interprets and celebrates landmarks of world cinema." In this particular competition, the BFI required its entrants to design a book cover for the anime film 'Akira.'  I feel that Akira already has its own strong visual Identity through its characterisation and anime. So in order to produce a more original cover I decided to make the imagery more conceptual rather than depicting characters from the story.  I aimed to capture the dark and uneasy feel of the film with the use of these complimentary colours.  I thought it was suitable to feature a red colour as this was a dominant colour in the film.  I used mostly watercolour and gouache washes for the background.  The line work was made using inks and the rest of the colour was rendered in Photoshop.