Project 4: Process Documentation
Print
March 2018
Individual
About this Project
The fourth project was to recreate covers for a series of books to combine the studies of typography, hierarchy, color, and shapes. The constraints were limited- the series just had to connect in some theme and had to be books. I chose a series of children’s poems by Shel Silverstein. The books are: “Where the Sidewalk Ends”, “The Giving Tree”, and “A Light in the Attic”.
Process Documentation
First, I researched what the current covers for these books looked like. They all had similar themes- fine lines and pretty detailed drawings. From this, I wanted to create books that were pretty different.
Sketches:
For my initial idea, I wanted to go with a simple and clean design to make the designs less child-book like. I wanted to incorporate a border into the book, as well as something that represented the book as a whole. For the Giving Tree, an apple clearly resembled the book, but because the other two consisted of over one hundred poems that didn’t have any correlation to each other, I chose a poem that stood out to me and pulled a symbol from that. For example, for Where the Sidewalk Ends, I chose “The Silver Fish” as the poem to represent the book. During my sketches, I didn’t think of the back cover or spine as much- but I knew I wanted it to have some continuity from the front cover.
First Iteration:
For my first iteration, I focused mainly on the Giving Tree. After reviewing my sketches, I decided I wanted to go for a more complex design- using geometric shapes and bright colors. The original covers were in black and white- with the exception of the Giving Tree which was green and had a red spot color. To me, children’s books are vibrant and colorful- so I wanted my covers to exude that as well. However, through the feedback I got after the mid crits, I realized that my theme didn’t flow through all of the pieces.
The feedback suggested that the Giving Tree was the most successful- and A Light in the Attic was somewhat successful because of the use of negative space. I decided I wanted to incorporate the negative space because it was a good way to pull out the element I had chosen for every book. I also realized that the book Where the Sidewalk Ends wasn’t successful, so I decided to scrap that idea. I also had to rethink the font- it didn’t go well with the geometric shapes and made the covers too busy.
Second Iterations:
Because the black lines in the original Giving Tree didn’t exactly flow with the geometric theme I’d wanted, I chose to take out the stroke color and make each block a different color. For continuity, I continued that through the rest of the books. After the one on one meeting, I saw that in the middle cover, the colors didn’t flow with the color scheme of the other books. In the third cover, the “window” look wasn’t successful, and it was suggested I rethink which area of the sun and moon was the negative space. Lastly, I received feedback on the title, and making it more children book like. I decided to simplify both the second and third covers so it’d be more obvious what the negative space was, and so that the themes would flow a bit more.
Third Iterations:
For my final iterations, I simplified both the color and designs for the books. Instead of keeping the white font, I chose to make it a shade of the other colors of the books. The stark white contrast against the black background was unpleasant. I also decided to use the negative space and bring it onto the back cover- and fill it with the poem it related to. This made it more obvious to see on the cover, and still carried the continuity throughout the book.
Conclusion:
Through the end of this project, I realized how important typography was. It created a theme and conveyed a mood on the cover. I also received feedback about the back covers- and perhaps making the shapes a little more obvious to see so the reader could distinguish what the shape was just from the back cover. Overall, I learned more about typography and the continuity of colors and shapes throughout a series.
