Project Four: Shape & Color
Print
2018
Individual Project
About the Project
In this project, we created book covers for three books that were part of a series. Using what we learned about hierarchy, typography, color, and Gestalt principles, we created book covers that were not only effective at conveying our series, but were also consistent in their layout and color scheme. We were also limited to using two to three hues, two type families or less, and identically sized books.
I decided to do my project on Disney princess books, specifically Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Beauty and the Beast, as fairytales are a topic I am very familiar with, and I wanted to redesign the covers so that they weren’t like the typical fairytale book cover.
Project Process
Sketches
Originally, I had decided to do my book covers on Shakespearean tragedies. My original concept was to create a more modern take on the original cover, incorporating both the main characters of each tragedy and some iconic symbols in order to both unify and modernize the series. However, I soon realized that I did not remember enough about two of the plays that I had chosen, and that a lot of the key features in Shakespeare’s tragedies were very similar. As a result, I soon switched directions into three Disney princess fairytales.
In my sketches for my new series, I focused on modernizing what I already knew about the fairytales I chose. I drew three versions, one with the dress of the princess, one with the side profile of the princess, and one with an iconic symbol from the fairytale. However, I felt as though my sketches were still quite literal; even though they were more modern takes on the Disney princess fairytales, they still drew from the same elements that could already be found on many Disney princess book covers. After showing my sketches to some classmates, they suggested I try to create book covers that had a similar concept to the ones I created in the Shakespearean tragedies. I thought that was a good idea, so I came up with some symbols I could use for my digital iterations.
First Digital Iteration
I decided to create my own take on the Disney princesses through the icons I drew. Ultimately, I decided not to incorporate the symbols, as I felt the book cover would then become too cluttered, and I wanted my covers to have a minimalistic feel. This was really hard for me, as I do not have much experience with Illustrator, and I struggled a lot with using the Pen tool. It took me many tries to create the curves I wanted for the princesses. Originally, I wanted to draw the Beast in his beast form, but I was never able to create it in the way I wanted to, so eventually, I decided to draw him in his human form. Because it took me so long to create the icons, I did not have much time to think about everything else. I wanted to use a font that was fairytale-like, but I felt as though the one I chose was bordering on childish.
During the intermediate critique, I received a lot of very helpful advice. Many of my classmates mentioned that while my icons were very cute, the general layout of my book covers was very simple, and the simplicity of the icons made the book cover feel very static. Many people also thought that my font was not very effective, which I agreed with, and suggested I use a more interesting font that fit better with my fairytale concept. I was also told that I needed to ground my icons, as the way they were currently positioned made them feel as though they were floating. There were also a lot of small details I needed to fix, such as the positioning and size of my icons to make them all the same, remembering to incorporate bleed into my book cover background, and altering the font size on the book spine to make it smaller.
At the end of the critique, Mackenzie pulled me aside to give me some more suggestions on how to proceed. She cited one of her design inspirations, Jessica Hische, and suggested I try to incorporate line drawing versions of my icons into designs similar to hers.
Second Digital Iteration
Although I really liked Jessica Hische’s quirky line sketches and decorative fonts, I struggled a lot with incorporating line drawing versions of my icons into book covers like hers. As a result, I chose to go in a completely different direction from the one I previously took. After browsing through a lot of Jessica Hische’s designs, I decided to go for a whimsical feel for my book cover. Originally, I wanted a cursive font in order to capture the fairytale feel I was looking for, and I came across Fairwater Script. I then decided to build my illustrations off of the font itself, but the design came out very childish and not at all similar to what I had been envisioning. As a result, I scratched the entire cover and started over again.
In the Fairwater type family, there was also a decorative serif font. I liked its modern look and use of lines within the letters themselves, so I decided to start creating illustrations around the decorative serif font instead. I decided to stretch the font, as I liked the way it looked. I aimlessly played around with some shapes and positions for a while, before I created the ladder shape above and below the font. I then realized that the ladder shape on top of the title was essentially a perfect pathway, and from there I was able to sketch out Cinderella’s staircase, Rapunzel’s tower, and Belle’s rose inside the glass cage. I decided to emphasize the important symbols such as the shoe, Rapunzel’s hair, and the rose by making them different colors, and I did the same with the titles as well. In my second iterations, I made the size of my books smaller, as many fairytale books were typically on the smaller side. I also changed the colors in order to be more similar in terms of brightness. I decided to keep my drawings very simple because I thought the minimalism was a good contrast to the ornate drawings normal found on fairytale book covers.
When I showed my designs to Mackenzie during the individual critique, she said that she liked my new designs. However, the color of the title and the color of the symbol were the same, and as a result the two elements ended up battling for attention. She suggested I change the color of the title into a darker hue of the background and line colors. She also guessed that my title fonts were stretched, and told me to revert them to their original font, but alter the kerning and the size instead to get the results I wanted, and she told me to find a sans-serif font that fit with my general concept, and to use that for the book spine and the ‘and the’ in the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ title. She also made some small suggestions, such as centering the symbols, and changing the color of the Cinderella symbol to white.
For my back cover, Mackenzie proposed I continue the ladder design I created on the front cover, and incorporate a pull quote and possibly another symbol from the movies or books.
Final Digital Iteration
For my final iterations, I took a lot of what Mackenzie said into account. I changed the color of the text into darker hues of the original background color, and after a lot of searching, I was able to find a sans-serif font that I thought worked well with my line drawings and with my title text. I unstretched the title font on the cover page, and I added pull quotes and line drawings on the back cover. I decided to make my line drawings correspond to the pull quotes, and as a result, I chose the broomstick from Cinderella, the lantern from Rapunzel, and the mirror from Beauty and the Beast. I decided to use the quotations from the decorative font with the sans-serif font as the text, as I liked seeing the continuity of the line trend in the quotations, but felt as though the actual text should be less decorative. I also changed the title of Beauty and the beast so that the ‘and the’ was the same size and font as the rest of the title.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I was able to combine a lot of my knowledge from previous projects into the book cover project. This project was definitely the most challenging one yet, as there were so many different variables I had to consider throughout the entire process. During the final critique, I received praise for my simple line drawings and the consistency of my book covers. However, people thought that the front cover wasn’t enough like a book cover, as it did not have an author’s name or other defining features a book cover usually has.
