The birth of Trilogy Covers
Book Covers/Series
2017
Individual Project
About the Project
I will design covers for three books that are part of a series. I might choose to work with an existing trilogy, or curate my own series of works by a specific author, about a similar theme or topic, from a single genre, etc. The key is to create or highlight a strong connection across the series. The three
covers will be distinctive, yet use some common design elements to unite the collection to communicate that the books relate to each other.
In this assignment, I’ll be dealing with issues of hierarchy (typographic, color, and spatial), as well as expression. How much emotion or abstraction can I bring to your type and still be an effective communicator? How can I use my typography in ways to create memorable forms? I will have
to strike a balance between form and function. Gestalt principles and typographic excellence will both come into play. Designing the white space will be just as important as everything else.
Project Process
The first concept I had in mind was very literal — train on the cover of “Murder on the Orient Express”, a river on “Death on the Nile”, and a tomb on “And then there were none”. However, it doesn’t require any smart design and has already existed on the market. So I turned to more minimumlistic design.
For this concept, I focused more on the “key elements” to the case and tried to play with the arrangement to give a sense of “crime scene”. The white title has a black rectangle background to create a bold feeling. On the back, the information text is also in a box, with a weapon on the left top corner so it looks like a note from the murderer. In each case, there is different weapon. so I drew the weapon according to the case as well.
This concept is the most minimumlistic and even a little symbolic. For “And then there were none”, there were 10 main characters who had complicated relationship with one another, so I put 10 equally distanced dots on a circle and connect them with messy lines. I also wanted the book cover to be two layers, the first one only has two holes, title and author’s name, the second one with the symbol and back cover information. For “Murder on the orient express” I felt like the ending of the book discussed more about justice than crime itself, so I drew a balance, with number 12 on the left and number 1 on the right. The two numbers are like little clues, or something you will understand after you finish the book. For “Death on the Nile” the case is about love. The victim has two sides, young, rich, beautiful, but also sad and insecure. The murderer also has two sides, charming, handsome, but also cold blooded and calculative.
My color theme is blue, red, and purple. Blue for justice, red for complicated relationship, and purple for coldblooded murder. The three colors are all relatively dark because I wanted to create the sense of darkness and mystery. I explored the curvature tool on Illustrator and drew all three symbols. For example, I put a picture of heart in the circle and traced the lines with the curvature tool. The result was very good, simple but informative. For “Murder on the orient express”, I change the Arabic numbers into Roman numerals so the clue is more discreet. The typeface of the title is called Champagne and Limousines, which surprisingly is a very minimumlistic typeface. The title and the author’s name are equally distanced from both the circle and the edge of the book. Also using symmetry, the title on the spine is center aligned with the center of the circle on the front cover. The back cover has the exact same circle as used on the front cover. The background color is white, so it wouldn’t distract people from the symbols.
I did a major change on “The death on the Nile” because I felt like the image of a heart would have more impact than a double sided face, and it also represents the meaning well.
This design is from the second concept. However, I did major changes. As I was exploring the color palette, I felt like I could play with simple things such as geometric shapes and how three monochromic colors could create a 3D feeling. The three color themes are the same as the last digital design, but I changed the saturation so it has a foggy look, creating more mystery feelings. I also rearranged the key elements so that one is on the left top corner and the other on right bottom corner. The title is right in the middle with a left downward motion and the arrangement of author’s name is continuous from the title. This is inspired by the posters we saw the other day in the library. I tried to incorporate the same element on the back cover as well, so I use back cover as “the back” of the element, be door, window, or invitation. So it’s like crime scene on the front page, and murderer outside the crime scene on the back page.
During mini critique, MacKenzie pointed out that the elements in my second concept are like floating in the air, and the arrangement of each information is very loose. On the day of individual meeting I was still struggling, trying to think outside the box and break the boundary of arrangement. During the individual meeting I needed to choose one concept to continue. I chose the second concept. Although I loved the first one the same, I felt like there was hardly any room for improvement, and I also wanted to explore the arrangement and the combination of monochromic colors. Overall, I wanted to learn more and get out of my comfort zone with this particular concept. So MacKenzie pointed out that I could scale up the title and play with the arrangement so it has some interactions with key elements as well. She also suggested me changing the typeface of the title so it’s more minimumlistic and less cute.
I started off with “Murder on the orient express” only because once I have the gist of one book, I can simply apply it to other two as well. I didn’t change a lot in terms of the arrangement of the elements, but I used different weights within the title, which was the first breakthrough. I emailed MacKenzie with this illustration and asked for advice. She suggested changing the typeface again to fit the minimumlistic theme. So I started to look at different typefaces.
I used this typeface called Phosphate, which looked very fun and minimum to me. I used rotation on the title, put the suitcase element in the middle of the title because I didn’t want to get rid of it. However, the whole thing still looked very off and each element still looked very separated.
So I turned my gears towards other typefaces. This one is called Raleway. I finally had the courage to get ride of the suitcase. Also, I incorporated the door onto the front page itself and now everything looked much more concise. Another breakthrough for me.
In the working session, MacKenzie simply changed the scales within the typeface, and somehow it just enlightened me. I started to play with simple geometric shapes.
I used the same structure on the other two as well. For “And then there were none” I changed the invitation on the front cover to an envelope and the back to the inner page of the letter in the envelope. “Death on the Nile” is a little bit tricky because as I was create a window, the title doesn’t really fit in and when I came up with this cabinet like window, my friends couldn’t tell it was a window, which was very unfortunate.
In the final critique, MacKenzie pointed out that the title of “Death on the Nile” was not very visible from far away, and the color scheme seemed like the opposite to the other two, so I need to fix that as well.
I changed the color of the book jacket so each fold has a different color. The title on the front and the information on the back are aligned, the author’s name and the title on the front are aligned, and it’s also aligned with the name on the spine.
I used the door from “Murder on the orient express” and changed it to red. I also added small lines on the envelope and the letter to differentiate it from the door.
I changed all the colors for this one, although it may not be obvious. Now the color scheme looks more consistent throughout the series. The window is more understandable, the title and the information on the back neatly fit into the window.
