The author of Venus in Furs, Ritter von Leopold Sacher-Masoch, is the namesake for the masochism portion of sado-masochism and this book explores the antics of a man who ropes his female neighbor, a wealthy widow, into becoming his dominatrix. His fetish for fur also plays a major role in the book, hence the title. Despite this, the book is incredibly misogynistic and the central “lesson” is that men must either dominate/subjugate women or they will themselves fall prey to subjugation.

I decided to go for a “cut and paste” collage style cover, including some of the background around the images (all scavenged vintage photos) to further add to the “cut out with scissors” vibe of the piece, then ran the cutouts individually through a vintage magazine filter. I cut off the eyes of every woman used in the collage to play into the themes of heavy misogyny and dehumanization of women that the narrator at first deifies.

The interior design was an attempt to marry the more contemporary style of the jacket with the vintage feel of the images themselves. I chose to use a serif font

Venus in Furs is really a book within a book. The main character is given a manuscript written by a friend about his experience with a dominatrix, in an attempt to rid his friend of the impulses towards female domination they both share. I set the portions of the book that take place in the “real” world in Tisa Pro, a serif font, and the manuscript itself in Tisa Sans, to further differentiate the two sections.