Project 4: Shape & Color
Process Documentation
About the Project
Project 4 incorporates all the design skills we have learned previously in addition to some new ones to create book covers that fit three books that are part of a series. These concepts included composition, type, hierarchy, color, etc. This project was a lot more complex than previous projects we worked on, as we had to keep in mind the compatibility of the other elements wile working on each individual one.
Book Series
For this project, I will be choosing three books from author Mitch Albom. Mitch Albom’s works, in particular with the three novels I have chosen, all have the shared theme of time and eternity and a sense of loneliness. I feel like the current covers fail to convey these emotions and lack consistency, so I would like to improve on that.
1.The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom
“There are five people you meet in heaven. Each of us was in your life for a reason. You may not have known the reason at the time, and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on earth. This is the greatest gift God can give you: to understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace you have been searching for.”
2.The First Phone Call From Heaven, Mitch Albom
“The news of life is carried via telephone. A baby’s birth, a couple engaged, a tragic car accident on a late night highway — most milestones of the human journey, good or bad, are foreshadowed by the sound of a ringing.”
3.The Time Keeper, Mitch Albom
“As mankind grew obsessed with its hours, the sorrow of lost time became a permanent hole in the human heart. People fretted over missed chances, over inefficient days; they worried constantly about how long they would live, because counting life’s moments had led, inevitably, to counting them down. Soon, in every nation and in every language, time became the most precious commodity.
Sketching
During the sketching process, I knew that I wanted to pull one major element from each book— five figures for The Five People You Meet In Heaven, the telephone from The First Phone Call from Heaven, and clocks from The Time Keeper — to be the focus of the front cover. I played around with some unifying elements that could relate the individual covers, such as clouds, a winding path, and an island form. I ended up going with the sketches in the second column because after speaking with MacKenzie, we both felt that those compositions allowed for interesting layering and composition.
First Iterations
For my first digital iterations, I focused more on getting the illustrations down and not so much on the type. I was pretty happy with my phone and clock illustrations, but I felt like the people looked a little strange. I tried to add ovals over the figures to imply faceless figures, but someone commented that it actually looked like fingers reaching out of the sky.
I wanted to convey the melancholy tones of the book through my color palette, so I drew inspiration from some images of clouds that gave me dreamy and ethereal vibes.
Since my illustrations were mostly flat, I found that any color that was even slightly a different hue really stood out in an ill fitting way. I ultimately went with the third color palette because even with the one purple-y shade, it still had enough blue in it to seem unified.
At the interim critique, I asked for feedback on the font, the color scheme, and whether people felt that my covers were felt too similar. The majority of responses felt that the similarity in style and color scheme actually worked well to bring all three books together. Some other helpful feedback included suggestions to hide the connector of the phone and watches behind a cloud layer, increase the contrast between background and elements, and consider adding a spot color to highlight the elements .
Second Digital Iteration
Following the suggestion of my peers, I made some changes before my individual critique. First, I extended the connectors of the phone and watch into the cloud layers so they no longer felt like they were just floating in midair. Second, I redid the people illustrations and changed up the placement. This change also gave me the idea to place the text at the center of the cover, so it is framed by the clouds and did not seem so clustered at the bottom of the composition. Finally, I changed up the font into a handwritten style so the overall composition did not feel so static.
I also tried to incorporate a different color theme as per suggestions from the interim critique but found that it just didn’t really work. I decided to stay with my original colors
Third Digital Iteration
From the individual critique with Mackenzie, I made a series of changes. First, I changed up some of the cloud layers so they were not similar from cover to cover. I also played around with the hierarchy and alignment of the text on the front and back to highlight details in order of importance. Finally, I adjusted the spacing between the elements and the edge of the covers to remove tension point and altered the design of the back.
Critique Iteration
Final Reflection
Sometime after the interim critique, I started to feel really unhappy with my design. I felt like every change I was another move away from what I envisioned when first starting the project. During the printing process, I also had to reprint my digital iterations because my front and back covers were reversed. When trying to adjust the elements, I made quite a few mistakes that were pointed out during the critique, such as putting my title in the wrong orientation on the spine, different font sizes for the text on the spine, the abrupt break between cover and spine, etc.
After the critique, I didn’t want to submit work that I was not satisfied with, so I made some additional changes before photographing. First, I feel like this new font fit my cover so much better because the previous one was too heavy and overwhelming. In addition taking away the abundance of cloud stopped the back cover form fighting for attention with the front cover. Changing the spine to be a different color as the front and back also distinguished the breaks of each section.
Overall, I enjoyed utilizing my knowledge from previous projects and learning a lot more about illustrator and its function.
Final Iteration
