CDF P4: Book Cover
Introduction:
For CDF project 4, I will create three book covers based on Marvel’s Captain America Trilogy. I use this series because I really enjoy Marvel and because the series raises many interesting questions and it is an incredible experience to be a part of Captain America’s adventure.
Series
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: Winter Soldier
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
About: After being deemed unfit for military service, Steve Rogers volunteers for a top secret research project that turns him into captain America, a superhero dedicated to defending America’s ideals. Captain America leads the fight for freedom as the ultimate weapon against evil. When a terrifying force threatens everyone across the globe, the world’s greatest soldier wages war on the evil HYDRA organization, led by the villainous Red Skull.
Theme: The 1st series is set in World War 2 and includes many interesting elements like the pursuit of freedom, the Nazis’s authoritarianism, and the possibility of realizing your dreams with strong belief and courage.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
About: After the cataclysmic events in New York with The Avengers, Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, lives quietly in Washington D.C. and trying to adjust to the modern world. But when a S.H.I.E.L.D colleague comes under attack, Steve becomes embroiled in a web of intrigue that threatens to put the world at risk. Joining forces with the Black Widow, Captain America struggles to expose the ever-widening conspiracy while fighting off professional assassins sent to silence him at every turn. When the full scope of the villainous plot is revealed, Captain America and the Black Widow enlist the help of a new ally, the falcon. However, they soon find themselves up against an unexpected and formidable enemy — the Winter Soldier.
Captain America: Civil War
United we stand. Divided we fall.
Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War finds Steve Rogers leading the newly formed team of Avengers in their continued efforts to safeguard humanity. But after another incident involving the Avengers results in collateral damage, political pressure mounts to install a system of accountability, headed by a governing body to oversee and direct the team. The new status quo fractures the avengers, resulting in two camps — one led by Steve Rogers and his desire for the Avengers to remain free to defend humanity without government interference, and the other following Tony Stark’s surprising decision to support government oversight and accountability.
Inspirations
I used the following materials to inspire me in creating my sketched.
Book Cover Sketches
I drew the following 2 pages to develop my sketching library and potential assets for the sketch.
The first sketch resembles the series and demonstrates how the storyline progresses. They all use a circle and the first one is about Captain America’s origin story. The second one is Shield being infiltrated by Hydra in the background and the third one is where everything comes together in the massive civil war.
The second sketch focuses more on drawing the characters themselves. First one is Captain America, second one is the winter soldier, and the third one is Iron Man vs Captain America. Showing the characters in detail is interesting but also hard to draw digitally.
The third sketch uses very large titles and I am thinking about putting interesting elements in the words themselves to create interesting interaction or put certain images in the background or as shadows of the titles.
The fourth sketch focuses on the places where the story takes place. The three places are World War 2 Europe, Washington D.C., and the ice mountain in Russia.
The fifth sketch is more consistent across style but it is very similar to the first sketch. The first one is the traditional patriotic style. The second one is Russian spy and the third one is a shield scratched, showing division and conflict.
I have designed 5 spines for the book since all three books will use the same style throughout the series. My main focus is on how the titles are placed and whether visual elements should be included in the spine. The first one is very standard and the title is bottom-aligned. The second one blows up the title and the third one includes an image. The fourth one splits the spine into two to create contrast and the fifth one just includes a digital asset that is relevant to the story.
For the back cover, I also come up with 5 ideas. The first one uses small and simple quotes while the second one places another element in the back. The third one places the title in a diagonal to make the placement more interesting and the fourth one consists of more text and description. The fifth one cuts the back cover into two and places texts on both sides.
1st Digital Iteration
For my first digital iteration, I decide to use strong color and to fill the cover with it entirely. In the front cover, I place an iconic symbol and title. For the spine, I emphasize the title once again and in the back cover, I put text description of the book. The symbols all have meanings to the series.
For the first one, the symbol is Captain America’s Shield and I use a brown color to imply that the story is based on the context of World War 2.
For the second one, I use the symbol of Shield and then place Hydra in the back with very low opacity because in the story, Hydra infiltrates Shield and is hiding in the back. However, the viewer may not understand why I place the elements in that way and it’s a spoiler to some extent.
For the third one, the circle consists of two parts. On the left is Captain America’s shield and on the right is Ironman’s reactor. Those ovals on the shield are actually scratches and I think that scratches show conflict and division. However, the biggest problem still is that if the viewer doesn’t know the series, he/she can’t understand the digital elements.
There are many problems with the 1st digital iteration and I have obtained invaluable feedbacks from my peers and instructors. The title in the front cover is not large enough while the title in the spine is too big. This doesn’t create the sensible text hierarchy and the book’s title is also not emphasized enough. In the back cover, there is way too much text and they are all clustered together and have no proper alignment. Furthermore, they stretch too close to the edges of the book and is very crowded. The color choice is also a problem. For the first book, the brown color is not visually appealing and using strong colors overall may not be that effective. The circular elements also need modification, like the strokes, the colors within them, and how they are placed.
2nd Digital Iteration
For the 2nd iteration, I aligned the text in the back cover and modified the color scheme for the first book into orange because it looks visually better and matches with the other two books better. However, orange is not a good option because it has no meanings in it. I changed the greyness of the shield to create sharper contrast. For the third one, I made the scratch on the shield more realistic and also added cracks on Ironman’s reactor. However, they don’t work well together and the title is still not large enough. The black stroke on the title also looks strange.
3rd Digital Iteration
For the 3rd digital iteration, I decided to shift my design choices dramatically and go from literal presentation to a more abstract form of expression. This shift will make the design more simple, direct, clean, and flat. For the digital symbols, I decide to use more lines instead of color fills. Captain America’s shield becomes the combination of red and grey lines while Ironman’s reactor consists of red and blue lines because the two colors represents two parties of the Civil War. The shield symbol is still very literal because I think it will look better in that way. The symbols also bleed off the edge because it is more interesting in that way and also leave more space for the viewer’s imagination and motivate them to read the book.
The titles become a lot bigger and the titles in the spine is relatively more subtle. I also significantly decrease the amount of text in the back cover so it will be simpler. The white background creates high contrast for the element and also feels more comfortable compared to the overwhelming of color in the previous two iterations.
Final Digital Iteration
For the final one, I made more changes to the title so that the line spaces are tighter and the elements will come together as one. I bleed the digital symbols more because readers can see some of the remaining elements in the left cover of the book. In the back, I decide to use full color so the short quotes can also look stronger and the series will maintain a good balance between white and other colors. For the spine, texts are bottom aligned. I decide to use red and grey for the first book because red conveys blood, war, violence, strength, passion, hope, and red and grey is the main color of Cap’s shield. Only black and white is used in the second book because the story is about mass surveillance and the tension and depression I want to establish is best with black and white. For the third series, the colors red and blue make it look a lot more colorful and vibrant because Civil War is about everything coming together and using colorful colors show that mixture. The two colors also represent Captain America and Ironman respectively.
Photography
