Project 4: Book Covers
Print/Illustration
2019
Individual Project
About the Project
The goal of this project is to design book covers for three books in a series or related by theme, author and or content. It is intended that each book be uniquely designed, while maintaining some consistencies in design with the other books in order to create a sense of unity in the collection. The design is limited to original visual materials and the use of photographic imagery is prohibited. Further constraints include the following: the same color palette of 3–4 hues should be used along with black and white, no more than 2 type families can be incorporated in the design, and all books used in the final display must be of the same height and width. The project was completed for the course Communication Design Fundamentals at Carnegie Mellon University, and upon completion it is expected that design principles regarding typography, shape and color are practiced.
Project Process
Original Concept Sketches
The original concepts were more abstract and focused on the main imagery from each individual book. The back cover would be simplified version of the front cover consisting of the overall shape produced by the image pictured. Additionally, the color palette included two vibrant colors for each book cover, along with black and white. The Metamorphosis was the first sketch made and the strongest of the three, while the other two were poor attempts to incorporate a similar style to the images. This disconnect led to the consideration of more ideas and, while working on illustrator ,a more minimalistic design concept was produced for The Castle. From this new design, the following iterations were produced.
The Metamorphosis Illustration
In The Metamorphosis, the main character wakes up as a bug and this inspired the illustration. Ironically, with this new design The Metamorphosis cover became the most challenging to design and many different illustrations of the bug were created. After considering the comments from my peers, I decided to remove the details from the bug, because the eyes were a bit strange and the bug seemed cute, which contradicted Kafka’s imagery of the bug as horrific. The final bug was more of a silhouette, which I felt gave the illustration a sense of mystery, which could help develop interest for reading the book.
In the final design the background color was changed to black because other combinations of colors were not as effective. The final design for The Metamorphosis was significantly different from prior iterations because of the length of the title, which appeared awkward and mismatched from the other books. Furthermore, this issue is the reason the design changed and as a result continuity was compromised, but in the end a more unique cover was created.
The Trial Illustration
The illustration for The Trial was based off the my interpretation of the main character’s feeling in Kafka’s story. The main character is charged with a crime unknown to him and he is put on trial, but he never discovers what crime he committed. The illustration depicts a crowd of people cowering over him as he falls helplessly, which is how I imagine the main character must feel in this type of situation as he struggles to prove he is innocent to a society that feels otherwise. Silhouettes were used prior to the design for The Metamorphosis, but with a similar intention of conveying mystery.
In efforts to create a more unique cover, ovals were used behind the illustrations, rather than using the red rectangle on the side, because of my use of ovals for the faces and bodies. In addition the image was made larger and the title was placed in the face of one of the shadows to avoid any clashes with the other colors, but it still remained on the top as done with The Metamorphosis. The body of the falling figure was smoothed out a bit, but left with the outline of the shapes used because the design overall used mainly shapes.
The Castle Illustration
The Castle design followed the the new concept very closely, simply because I felt it was effective and visually appealing. The illustration is supposed to depict a tower from a castle, which in the book the main character struggles to contact his government that resides in a castle. The light blue was used because of the contrast it created with the red, the colors in the other two covers were then chosen from this blue, and all three are analogous colors. Overall the final iteration maintained the same concept and layout, but the tower was no longer cut off, this was done to avoid any confusion about the illustration. Thick black lines were used to create the brick design again for that high contrast aesthetic that I wanted to produce.
Overall Design Continuity
Overall, each design was simple and focused on having high contrast while the illustrations were made with geometric shapes. The Metamorphosis focused on the triangle shape which was used to create the head of the bug and is depicted behind the bug. The Trial used ovals which were used to form the cowering heads of the people and the background. While The Castle kept the rectangle shape design, considering each brick was a rectangle. The spines of the books used to have spikes on the side, but I decided to remove them for simplicity and kept to triangles instead a red and white that remain the same dimensions despite the width of the spine. The flaps of the book kept the spike design instead to give the inside of the book a bit of flair as it is opened.
The layout of each back cover was very similar to unite the series, but also included a hint of the illustration depicted on the red rectangle. The author’s last name Kafka had the K highlighted because in both The Trial and The Castle the main character is called K. The background color is intended to go dark to light with the trial being a dark gray, but unfortunately this did not print well, and the other two being black and white. As a result the hierarchy of the length of the title was compromised, but it was more important for The Metamorphosis to be black and The Castle to be white. I am satisfied with The Metamorphosis and The Castle, but feel the gray on The Trial is not ideal, so potentially future iterations would focus on creating all dark covers or all light.
