Project 4: Shape & Color
Project 4 of Communication Design Fundamentals focuses on shape and color to make book covers that effectively represent the content of the stories. Visual hierarchy and Gestalt principles continue to be important for implementation of the design. The main constraints are that photographic imagery is not allowed, only three to four hues besides black and white can be used, and all three books used for the designs must have the same height and width.
Background
For this project, I chose to make book covers for three of Laurie Halse Anderson’s books: Speak, Catalyst, and Wintergirls. All three of these realistic fiction books focus on contemporary issues of women in high school. Speak is about sexual assault, Catalyst is about college applications, and Wintergirls is about anorexia and self-harm.
Sketches
The main ideas I followed for my sketches came from either the title of the story or the symbolism in each novel. My first sketches of the series focused mainly on the title, incorporating a woman surrounded by quotes. The second and third sets were explorations of the more symbolic parts of each book. Speak contained strong tree imagery, so I sketched one page with a single tree and another with a girl’s face surrounded by leafy branches. Catalyst is divided into three main parts: solid, liquid, and gas. I tried to display that on the second Catalyst sketch with an ice cube changing to water and then steam. In the third Catalyst sketch, I drew a chemical reaction between two liquids since chemistry is strongly mentioned throughout the book. The last two Wintergirls sketches, which tried to incorporate ice and glass imagery, were the most difficult for me. I struggled with coming up with ideas that would look aesthetically pleasing while still effectively conveying the serious tone of the book. Lastly, I drew the concepts for the spines of all three books, following the idea of a handwritten-style title and a simple sans serif author name.
Interim Iterations
When it was time to transfer the sketches to Illustrator, I had to make a number of decisions with color and typeface in addition to the sketch choices. I used green, teal, and blue as my colors, sticking with one main hue for each cover and tweaking the value and saturation for variations of color within the covers. I chose to go with a font called Have Heart One for the title because it stood out enough while giving the handwritten feel that I wanted. For the author’s name, I chose Avenir because it was a simple, modern sans serif font.
I iterated the leaf sketch for Speak, deciding to exclude the face for simplicity and for better consistency with the other books. In addition to the original leaves, I traced tree branches to add another layer of depth. I put in the solid to gas sketch of Catalyst because it seemed like the most feasible one to incorporate across an entire cover. The patterns in this book consisted of tracing ice, flowing water, and steam. Lastly, I started a fresh idea with Wintergirls, modeling the patterns after frost on windows.
During interim critiques, I realized that my dimensions were off — I had forgotten to account for the length of the spine, and I had overestimated the height of the books. People also commented that Catalyst stuck out because of the ice cube and because of the different nuances from the other books. People also mistook the frost for birds in Wintergirls, so I definitely needed to redo those shapes. Lastly, I got suggestions to move the author’s name to the bottom to improve the balance of the front covers.
Final Iterations
After interim critiques, the first step was to fix the dimensions. This wasn’t much of a difficulty, and I only had to move a few objects here and there as a result. Next, I completely wiped the patterns from Wintergirls and darkened the background to match the values of the other books. I then proceeded to trace shards of glass and snowflakes to more effectively display the ice and glass on the cover. For Catalyst, I deleted the ice cube and shifted around the water and puffs of steam to make them surround the title. I also simplified the water and steam, removing the highlights from the water and making the steam’s “3D” effect one unified puff.
At the final critiques, people commented that I had effectively made the covers consistent while still making each book unique enough on their own. They also liked my font choice, and I was glad that they got the feel that I wanted with the typography.
Throughout this process, I became more comfortable with the pen tool and learned how difficult it can sometimes be to make elements consistent yet effective throughout a series.
