Shape and Color
For this project, we were to design covers for three books in a series. I chose to design covers for three of Shakespeare’s tragedies: Othello, Macbeth, and Romeo & Juliet. I decided on these three specific plays because I personally enjoyed reading them in high school and had a good idea as to the themes of each play and how they unfold. After reviewing the plots of each play, I realized that what each of them had in common, besides the fact that each of them ends in death and tragedy, is that the protagonist of each story had a unique relationship with a female character, usually a love interest. This relationship typically brought out a fatal flaw in each protagonist which ultimately led to both characters’ deaths.
For the covers, I started by sketching out key symbols within each play, but after a couple of iterations, I narrowed in on focusing trying to capture the dynamic relationships that the protagonists had with the lead female character.
Ultimately, I decided to focus specifically on the characters’ hands. I felt that different interactions between the hands could be an interesting way to portray the stories as well as symbolically represent key themes in the plays.
Othello
Othello’s relationship with his wife, Desdemona, is characterized by the fact that they both genuinely loved each other for deep and pure reasons. While Desdemona’s love for Othello is steadfast throughout the novel, Othello’s own insecurity about his race (in addition to the manipulative schemes of a jealous antagonist) is what makes him paranoid and insecure about their relationship, ultimately leading to Othello killing Desdemona.
I decided to portray this dynamic around the symbol of the handkerchief that Othello gave to Desdemona. It was described in the play as being white with an embroidered strawberry on it, symbolizing their pure love that had been tainted with blood. Something I wanted to highlight in the depiction of the hands was the power dynamic between the two characters. Though Othello was a very masculine character, as general of the Venice army, his greatest weakness is his insecurity in the fact that he is a Moor and his wife is white.
In the cover design, I wanted to keep this dynamic in mind, that Desdemona had more power over Othello.
On the back cover, I decided to repeat the imagery of the handkerchief, but show a glimpse of the scene where Desdemona loses her handkerchief, leading Othello to accuse her of being adulterous. I also included a famous line in the play that hints at Othello’s fatal flaw of jealousy and insecurity.
Macbeth
Macbeth’s relationship with his wife, Lady Macbeth, is interesting because Lady Macbeth holds the power. She “wears the pants” in the relationship and holds significant control over Macbeth, manipulating him to kill the current king so that Macbeth could take the throne. Their bloodthirsty desires to become king and queen of Scotland is what drives them to kill countless innocent civilians, including Macbeth’s closest companion, as well as an entire royal family.
Through this book cover, I wanted to convey the fact that it was Lady Macbeth who was the one behind the schemes that allowed Macbeth to become king.
During the interim critique I received feedback that the head was unnecessary, and that the hands alone did a sufficient job at conveying the message.
Interim Critique
An important piece of feedback that I received from this critique was that another connecting factor between the series could be the repetition of the color red. I really liked this idea and decided to include it when designing the third book.
Romeo & Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is the story of classic star-crossed lovers from opposing families. Their relationship is defined by young, passionate love that defies and rebels against authority and the rules of their society. Their failed plan to run away together results in both of their deaths.
I felt that the promise they made to each other to secretly get married and run away together could be portrayed to this gesture of interlocking pinky fingers. I thought I could include the “red” theme with the bottle of poison, but I received feedback that the image of the poison and dagger are a bit too explicit and scary. I agreed with this critique and decided to go with a rose instead, alluding to Juliet’s famous line about how “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed working on this project and thinking about the different design decisions that could be made to create a series. Some suggestions I received during the final critique was that the rose on the back cover of Romeo & Juliet could have had higher contrast, as well as an idea that I could have added blood splatters to the back of all three books. I think if I were to go back and improve, I would included this feedback, and add different patterns of bloodstains to the background of each front cover. Overall, I had a lot of fun thinking about the plots and themes of each play and the process of making design decisions to best represent these symbols through the book cover designs.
