Project 4 — Book Cover Redesigns
Communication Design Fundamentals
October 5 — November 2
Fall 2017
About
This was the fourth project for the Communication Design Fundamentals course at Carnegie Mellon. The task was to redesign the book covers for a series of three books. I chose the Nancy Drew series, a large collection of mystery novels following Nancy Drew, the iconic teenage detective. The three books I chose were “The Secret of the Old Clock”, “The Hidden Staircase”, and “The Mystery at Lilac Inn”.
Initial Sketches
Since the existing Nancy Drew covers are very old-fashioned and illustration-heavy, I wanted to simplify the covers while maintaining the dark theme and mystery element. For my initial ideas, I researched the plots of each book and compiled a list of symbols relevant to each story. One theme was “twins”, such as a bright vs. shady mansion across from each other and an evil twin vs. Nancy. I tried to incorporate this idea in one of my initial sketches by showing the object and its dark counterpart for the other half. For the next sketch idea, given that the original covers were so heavy with illustration, I also wanted to depict the same level of action with simpler imagery. The front cover would be an action shot of Nancy and the back cover an extension of the action scene. After these initial sketches, my instructors encouraged me to explore how to incorporate typography rather than illustration. Next, I chose to write out the titles and draw vertical lines extending from the letters. I realized that these lines could create interesting shapes that resembled symbols from the books, and conveyed a creepy/mysterious feeling. I also experimented with just typography and placement of letters to create similar shapes. The back covers would be simple with a repeated symbol (either the Nancy Drew silhouette or a flashlight).
First Digital Iteration
After seeing my sketch ideas, my instructor suggested that I first iterate on the typographic covers, then find ways to incorporate the illustrative ideas, if possible. She also suggested that I reconsider the placement of the vertical lines on each letter so that, for example, “HIDDEN” would not look like “HIPPEN”. Therefore, I decided to iterate on the idea of vertical lines extending from the letters. I used Adobe Illustrator to translate the sketches into digital versions. To avoid confusion about what the title was saying, I spent a lot of time placing each vertical line properly to maintain the integrity of the letter and the shapes I was creating. I had trouble converting the initial sketch for “The Secret of the Old Clock” into a coherent digital cover, so I simply wrote out the title and tried to convey that each rounded letter (“O”, “C”) was a clock. For the color of each cover, I used an online tool to find colors that were compatible and similar saturation. Initially, I didn’t put too much thought into assigning the colors to each book, except that I felt “Mystery at Lilac Inn” should be a shade of purple. I decided to add the Nancy Drew silhouette to the front cover to add some action, since just the title and lines was a bit unexciting and did not communicate that the book was a children’s novel. I used the pathfinder tool on Illustrator to create the Nancy Drew figure, and used the knife tool to create variations of her figure in different positions. This added some needed playfulness to the front cover.
In the first crit, I requested feedback about whether or not the vertical lines were distracting, about the color scheme, and how to make the back cover interact more with the front. My peers had mixed feedback about the vertical lines. While some thought the idea was “cool” and worked well in “The Hidden Staircase”, several thought they were slightly distracting in the other two covers. They suggested ways to make the lines less apparent, such as making the lines thinner or a more faded color, like grey. My instructor felt that the lines may not be necessary at all. My peers responded positively to the dark color scheme, but suggested a different color for the spine. They also suggested that I keep the typeface consistent, especially between the front cover and spine. Finally, some felt that the back covers were too identical, and felt that I should make them more unique to the individual books.
Second Digital Iteration
For the next digital iteration, I immediately tackled the issue of the uncharacteristic white spine and the inconsistency in typefaces. In response to feedback that the vertical lines were too busy in “The Secret of the Old Clock” and “The Mystery at Lilac Inn”, I removed all lines except for those necessary to create the clock and house symbols. Once I removed some of the lines, I felt there was more room to experiment with how to bring out the title to the forefront of hierarchy. Thus, I moved the Nancy Drew silhouette to the back cover and planned to show her in different postures to individualize the books.
Third Digital Iteration
During the individual session with my instructor, we identified several problems with my design.
- The typeface I used for the title (“Inika”) was steering toward old-fashioned, which wasn’t benefiting my effort to revamp the original covers.
- The font in the front cover, especially the title, needed to be tightened up to highlight the hierarchy of the title. I should also use a different typeface for text besides the title, ideally a sans serif one.
- The spine text was too large, and I should consider indicating the book number in the series on the bottom of the spine.
- The colors did not necessarily communicate anything about each book, and seemed kind of random.
Final Iteration
For the final iteration, I decided to use a neutral color for the cover and use simple, bright colors that were relevant to each book as a highlight throughout the rest of the cover. I felt that the grey properly conveyed the dark/mystery component of the novels while the bright pops of color communicated the youthful, enthusiastic personality of Nancy Drew. After experimenting with many typefaces for the title, I settled on “Homestead”, Inline, a slab serif typeface that was compact and not too wide. I liked that the dark lines inside the letters, instead of solid letters, conveyed the idea that not everything is as it appears. I kept the relevant symbols as solid highlight colors to bring attention to them. I also added back a few of the vertical lines in “Secret of the Old Clock” and “Mystery at Lilac Inn” to unify them more with “The Hidden Staircase”. For the spine, I iterated on minor details like making the title smaller, moving “Nancy Drew” below the magnifying glass symbol, and coloring the magnifying glass. For the back cover, I wanted to implement a more drastic change to differentiate the books. Drawing inspiration from the initial sketches that were illustration-heavy, I depicted the top half of the back covers as a simple action scene. I used the highlight color on the top half rather than the bottom half because having it frame the action was more intentional than having it frame the description text. I tried to keep the illustrations simple to match the relative simplicity of the front cover.
If I had more time, I would spend more time refining the details of the back cover, such as adjusting the margins of the description text. I would definitely refine the action illustrations, such as smoothing out the road. In “Hidden Staircase”, I would add more, smaller steps to make it look more like a staircase and brighten the pink highlight color to match the value of the other covers’ colors. In “Mystery at Lilac Inn”, I would make Nancy look more like she is swimming, rather than drowning, and adjusting the shapes of the waves. Overall, this was a fun experience and I enjoyed using different tools in Adobe Illustrator to create the effects I wanted. I realized how challenging it is to convey the character of a book in a simple book cover, and to create a design that would entice a customer to actually buy the book.
