Project 4: Shape and Color
In this project we were given the task to chose a certain book series or group of similarly themed books and design covers for them. For the books, I decided to go with a galactic themed series called “ The Foundation Series” by Issac Asimov.
A B O U T . T H E . F O U N D A T I O N . S E R I E S
The Foundation series is a science fiction series based in a sort of dystopian future where the large and extremely powerful Galactic Empire rules over much of the Milky Way galaxy. Hari Sheldon, a mathematician, who a particular interest in how internal psychological interests influence historical events, develops a branch of science he coins as “psychohistory.” Using his newly developed branch of science, Sheldon predicts the fall of the Galactic Empire and 30,000 years of turmoil. This prediction of ultimate destruction of such a powerful empire, sets the stage for several different groups of scientists, politicians and military groups battling for power and control of a “failing empire.”
M A I N . T H E M E . I T E M S . F O R . T H E . B O O K . C O V E R . D E S I G N
Understanding the basic premise of the series, I next sought to understand how such a complex story could be broken down into three sequenced representations of the theme. Reading the synopsis for all the books in the series I decided to use three as the base representations of the larger theme.
These three books are : The Foundation, Foundation and Empire, The Second Empire.
I chose these three in the series because I think they exhibit the broader theme well in three very important aspects of the theme, The prediction, The battle, and the uniting of thought groups.
Taking these three broader, simplified themes I sought to then begin testing how the visual representation of these would look.
I T E R A T I O N S. (C O M P O N E N T S)
For the concept ideation, I wanted to first look at how I could ties in all of the different sub concepts together so that they read as a whole. I thought that since the premises of the book has to do with a large and powerful empire that ruled the galaxy, that planets, as parts of the empire, would be important in representing the state of the empire. Therefore in the first book, for the prediction I wanted to display the birth of a planet. Where in the second book, in battle, the destruction of planets and in the third with the joining of forces, the joining of planets.
D I G I T A L . I T E R A T I O N S
For the first iteration of the book covers, I tried to develop a color scheme and style that would work across all three. Even though this color scheme is more than just a few listed ones, I wanted to make sure that overall, visually they all tied together. I ended up setting for less of a pastel theme and vibrant accent colors of white, red, green and blue in the final iteration with the planets and stars to ties the background together.
F I N A L . I T E R A T I O N
The following are images from the final iteration. They apply the same sub concepts as iterated on in the following process and use similar text location to tie all three together.
