CDF Project 4: Shape & Color
Print
2019
Individual Project
About the Project
For this project, we are designing covers for three books that are a part of a series. The books can be an existing series, a curated set of books from similar genres, or even books that we make up ourselves. The goal is to make it apparent that the three books are part of the same series but also make sure the books can stand alone.
Inspiration
The first thing that came to mind when I thought about a series with a theme and related covers that showed they belonged together was the Phaidon Wallpaper* City Guides.
These city guides remind me of Pantone color chips! They share identical formats and design, but come in a different color for each city. Their covers show that they belong in the same collection but they do not need each other to be understood individually.
I sought for more inspiration on Pinterest, Behance, and Google. Below are some of my favorite book covers and designs that I found, with descriptions of what I liked about them.
Ideas
- breakfast, lunch, dinner
- cookbooks maybe! - my favorite broadway shows that I’ve seen
- contenders: Hamilton, Wicked, Phantom of the Opera, Dear Evan Hansen - city guides
- 3 cities that mean a lot to me — NYC, London, Taipei - city food guides
- the covers would be more directed at the foods/restaurants in the city rather than the city’s landmarks — NYC, London, Taipei - Shel Silverstein’s books
- “The Giving Tree”, “Where the Sidewalk Ends”, “Falling Up”
Since Shel Silverstein’s works are children’s picture-books with illustration-heavy content, I decided I didn’t want to create new covers for them without the original art of the author/illustrator.
I really liked the idea of the three cities, since they mean so much to me. Regarding the food guides, I thought it might be hard to narrow down which food(s) would encapsulate an entire city’s cuisine. Thus, I decided to go with the idea of general city guides.
Final Theme Selection
Capital cities on 3 different continents — New York, London, and Taipei
Although there is no guide from Time Out for Taipei, I figure the content could be from their digital guide.
Book 1: New York
Front cover: “New York”, “Time Out”
- outline of landmark (Statue of Liberty or World Trade Center)
- line drawing of map as background
Spine: “New York”, “Time Out”
- shape of city
- geometric render of landmark
Back cover: “Time Out New York City Guide helps visitors select the best of what’s new in this famously fast-paced destination whilst reserving space for well-loved classics. Each year, more than 50 million visitors from around the globe arrive to experience its renowned museums and cultural institutions, its incredible range of retail and one of the world’s most dynamic dining scenes.”
Book 2: London
Front cover: “London”, “Time Out”
- outline of landmark (London Eye or Big Ben)
- line drawing of map as background
Spine: “London, “Time Out”
- shape of city
- geometric render of landmark
Back cover: “Time Out’s guide selects the very best that London has to offer. Our expert local authors introduce London’s past and present with their trademark appreciation of contemporary culture and in-depth coverage of the city’s architectural and artistic treasures.”
Book 3: Taipei
Front cover: “Taipei”, “Time Out”
- outline of landmark (Taipei 101)
- line drawing of map as background
Spine: “Taipei”, “Time Out”
- shape of city
- geometric render of landmark
Back cover: “The top things to do in Taipei may surprise you. Taiwan’s capital city hums with life beneath one of the tallest buildings on Earth. It’s not unusual to see a breakdancing show, visit a contemporary art gallery, taste delicious street food and go on a hike through rugged nature all in the same day. Thanks to the city’s super-efficient public transport network, you’ll be able to zip across the city as you check out our guide to the best things to do in Taipei.”
Initial Sketches
These were some initial ideas I had for the book covers. The map would be the background and the city’s iconic landmark would be the foreground. I envisioned the city names to make a perfect square that would be inlaid in a black square that overlaps the image and the border which is the line-drawing map of the background.
Digital Iterations
These are the raw line drawings of each city’s maps, an iconic landmark for that city, and splotch color patterns I created using Procreate on iPad Pro:
These are some of the digital versions I created on Illustrator:
I decided on Helvetica as my typeface because of its simplicity. I wanted a sans serif font to match the style of the line drawings and not be too ornate as I felt that would detract from the illustrations. In addition, Helvetica has a lot of different weights for me to play around with for hierarchy (bolder titles, lighter weight for blocks of text, etc).
For some reason I associate certain colors with certain cities, a sort of synesthesia… When I think of Taipei or Taiwan as a whole, I think of green. When I think of London, I think of a deep crimson or cardinal red. When I think of New York City, I think of hues of blues ranging from sky blue to navy blue. Maybe the green for Taipei comes from the mountainous and tropical landscape and the city’s efforts towards an eco-friendly society, maybe the blue for NYC because it’s surrounded by water and very cold for many months of the year, and maybe a reddish hue comes to mind for London because of the royalty and iconic red telephone booths.
After getting some in-class feedback, there was positive review for the organic-but-circular color splotches that highlighted the buildings/statue and the lighter gray map background. I decided to pursue that layout and design.
Interim Crit
I decided to get really thin books to wrap my covers around, since usually city guides are thin booklets. This meant I had to re-design the spines and the text could really only go sideways down the spine and not across like I originally planned. I also wanted to incorporate color to the back covers, so I added color splotches of different sizes.
Due to size constraints and the layout of my book covers, I also decided not to the shape of the city or a geometric render of the landmark on the spine like I originally planned.
These are the final drafts I printed out and wrapped around my books for interim crit on March 25, 2019:
Notable feedback I received:
- layout is nice
- line art style is cool
- colors work together very well
- kerning for city names feels inconsistent and is uncomfortable and distracting
- NYC doesn’t have larger association (Taipei has Taiwan, London has UK)
- text placement on back covers seem random
- should extend background map so it wraps to back cover too
- background maps could be more transparent
- 2 circles on the back works better than 1
- align spine titles and make sure they’re the same weights
Final Compositions
For my final compositions, I made several changes from the feedback I received during interim crit.
I agreed with everyone that the spacing of the city names were too weird to understand and was distracting. The only one that it really worked for was “New York City”, so my vision didn’t quite work out. To help with the kerning issue, I decided to completely discard the black strips that went across the spine. I looked towards Cereal and Kinfolk magazines, which have always been an inspiration for me with their minimalistic styles — using only white and grays and a single typography choice to showcase beautiful images effortlessly.
I wanted to keep my designs light and simulate some of the effects that these magazines employ — title overlaid halfway on the foreground image and the background, few text blocks, minimal colors (mostly white and grays).
For the front cover, I created a gray rectangle for the foreground illustration to lie on. Then I made the city name half on the background map and half on the gray rectangle containing the illustration.
I extended the map to the back cover so it wraps across the back, spine, and front of the book. The titles on the spine are also now aligned and all the same weight. To be consistent, the books display only the city names and no larger state or country association.
For the back covers, I made two color splotches instead of just one, since that was something people liked! And to make the text less randomly-placed, I created a gray rectangle similar to the one on the front cover and overlaid “TIMEOUT MAGAZINE” on that rectangle, tying in the book’s creator.
I noticed that my stroke widths were not all the same when I stretched and cropped the maps and buildings/statue, so I redrew some of the drawings for the final compositions.
I also experimented with opacity of the map backgrounds and did several test-prints before finally settling with this shade of gray for the rectangles (RGB=240, 240, 240) on top of the map which was at 7% opacity.
I ran into some challenges while printing my book covers. One time, the gray on the Taipei cover was different than the other two covers. Another time, the green turned out darker than the digital version. In the final print, I still think the green is maybe a bit darker than I would’ve liked. However, they’re what I envisioned for the most part!
Reflections
I’m pretty satisfied with the outcome! I really like the map wrapping all the way around and having multiple color splotches on the back. I also love the light theme with just white and gray and I’m glad I took the black squares and strips out. I definitely prefer my final compositions over the ones I had for interim crit, but I had so many more ideas and things I wanted to try. If I had more time or got to do this project again, I would do another version of the map drawings so the strokes are even more consistent and less stretched/pixelated, try out a different sans serif font, experiment with a different landmark for London (while Big Ben is iconic, a red telephone booth or the London Eye might have portrayed London better), and also try different colors for each city (I started with these three colors and just stuck with them because they’re the colors I associate with each city, but other colors might have looked good too).
Overall, I loved this project. Getting to illustrate and make covers about my favorite cities didn’t feel like work at all and I learned a lot about layout, shapes, and color.
