CDF Project 4: Shape & Color
Research on Book Series
I will use these three books:
- I am Malala
- A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan
- A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice
Genre of this series: Women from Afghanistan who have stood up for their rights such as education, freedom of speech and independence in one way or another. All three book covers focus on a portrait image of the woman who stood up to the hierarchical nature of the society that they grew up in.
I am Malala
Author → Malala Yousafzai, Christina Lamb
Year written → 2013
At the back quote → Education is education. We should learn everything and then choose which path to follow. Education is neither Eastern nor Western, it is human.
A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan
Author → Nelofer Pazira
Year written → 2005
At the back quote → The curfew starts at 10:00 every night. But there is another unspoken curfew that is imposed not by the communist government but by fear, a curfew that sets in much earlier.
A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice
Author → Malalai Joya, Derrick O’keefe
Year written → 2009
At the back quote → I don’t fear death; I fear remaining silent in the face of injustice. I am young and I want to live. But I say to those who would eliminate my voice: I am ready, wherever and whenever you might strike. You can cut down the flower, but nothing can stop the coming of the spring.
Sketches
I made sketches of potential ideas I could explore further, after drawing them out I didn’t like the ones that focused on the image of the girl more than the object. I also didn’t like the aesthetics of the ones that had too much writing apart from the author and the title of the book — it looked really cluttered and confusing. I like when the spines were simple as I really want readers to focus on the message that is being conveyed rather than any additional design elements so the hierarchy of the message was a priority. I like the negative space around the title and author because it brings importance to it. I decided to explore 1 and 2 further, starting with 1.
First Digital Iterations
I explored my first sketch I had done. I drew the girl and ladder on illustrator itself, as I found it easier and more efficient that drawing on paper and then transferring it to the computer. Each book had its own spot color.
I liked that the cover looked like a room and the ladder fit comfortably in it. I liked the shading around the room as well but I wish I had done colors other than blue for the other two books that didn’t have a base of blue. I liked the back as well but the lines were not purposeful and didn’t tie all the elements of the book together. The quote fit well on the back but the rag was an issue as the flow was really jerky and abrupt — this made it hard to read. The fist on the spine didn’t quite fit the illustrative style of the front cover so it looked very out of place. The ladder was supposed to have a more dramatic ascension with each book but instead, the transition wasn’t as obvious. The colors seemed fine on the computer but once I printed them out, I realized that it looked really childish and that collided with the serious concept of the book series. In terms of typography, I was happy with the font I chose as it was bold and easy to read, but alignment was definitely an issue. “I am Malala” is too close to the lines and looks very compressed and uncomfortable.
Overall, I don’t think this design was particularly successful because in mid-crit, many people felt that it wasn’t hopeful as the ladder isn’t leading to anywhere and the image of the room is kind of depressing which goes against what these books stand for.
Second Digital Iterations
For my second round, I decided to stray away from sketch 1 and explore sketch 2 instead.
This was just the initial layout of the sketch, I really liked the grey with the girl in black, because it really made the image or object that she is holding stand out. I also like the idea of the path and her walking as it showcases her walking towards something and gives the idea of hope. I also liked when she was to the left hand side of the image.
The rag still wasn’t working even with the path sort of mirroring the flow of words, so I decided to completely change the order of the words for all 3 books. The girl was also too close to the side of the book which was uncomfortable to look at. So I wanted to move her further to allow more breathing space. The title and author were too close to each other and there was no hierarchy being communicated. I also felt only with the object being colored was too awkward and my teacher agreed with that too. So I needed to use the spot color in more places and wanted to use to highlight important information as shown in the picture below.
I wanted to try changing up the for me, for you and for us to make it more obvious and draw attention to it, so I tried some variations including making it a part of the back cover and moving it to the top. However, neither of them were effective though and looked kind of out of place. So, I decided to just stick with having it at the bottom.
Highlighting one important line at the back drew more attention to it which was good because I want readers to look at the back and read what is important about the book.
Final Designs
Photos of my book series
