The Metamorphosis

Book Cover Redesign

Beginning Research

Research into Franz Kafka, the Author

“He was born to a middle-class German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Bohemia (presently the Czech Republic), Austria–Hungary.” His work is “considered to be among the most influential in Western literature” (goodreads.com). The Metamorphosis, along with nearly all his other novels, was originally written in German and then translated to English.

Genre: Classic

It is also categorized as Fiction, Literature, Fantasy, Philosophy.

Mood/Tone

• dreamy
• surreal
• absurd
• horror
• fear
• anger
• depression

Setting

• The family home.

Visual Language Notes/Ideas While Reading

• beasts pretending to be men
• nightmares
• “acting out some animal identity in himself” pg 7
• “nature red in tooth and claw” pg 8
• the small quiet room
• a “troubled dream”
• the window in the bedroom — pg 18
• stuff dripping from his mouth — into the type?
• attacked by dad with stick — pg 35
• lonely in his room
• everyone peering into the room — pg 35
• animal
• hiding under the couch — pg 52
• being fed by his sister
• looking out the window “inspiring terror” — pg 52
• parting the curtain under the couch with only his eyes visable — pg 53
• empty room except sofa — pg 59
• everything spinning — pg 63
• Gregor isolated from the family
• the door left open — pg 72
• very dirty room — pg 83
• peering out of the room to listen to his sister — pg 83

Original Covers

HardCover Book.

This is the book that I got in the mail, since it’s a hard-cover version. It’s very plain. The colors do not fit the book, in my opinion. They are too dull.

Covers I found online.

Online, I found other covers.

I really don’t like the one on the left. I don’t understand the font. It feels too ornate.

The middle and one on the right capture the spirit of the book better in my opinion. Yet, they feel outdated in style, so I would like to modernize it a bit.

I like the use of black, white, and red colors because they are dramatic, but I’d like to experiment with the white hue.

Commentaries on the Book (sourced from goodreads.com)

• “Metamorphosis was first written by Ovid; it’s about the changing of gods, demi-gods and heroes. Kaffka (as I know) wanted to show the ‘modern’ changing of people: if one becomes useless his family will not care about him (same things may happen to old and sick people as well).” I found this very insightful.
• “the book highlights the metamorphosis of a man into an insect, above that the metamorphosis of the feelings of his family members, their attitudes change and how all the situationas in a normal human life changes with his transformation into an insect. I guess that is why it is called the metamorphosis.”
• “The Metamorphosis is the story of how Gregor Samsa’s transformation tears his family apart.”
• “The author robs Gregor-the protagonist- of every sense of his inauthentic existence by stealing off all assumptions of his life, now he is striped down to the very core of his existence. The protagonist is encountered with basic problems of human existence- what it takes to be?- which we encounter in our lives- if we once appeared socially acceptable and now have ceased to do so, are we still in fact ourselves? Was the socially-acceptable persona in fact ourselves, or is there more essential self-ness in the being we have now become? Or have we, in fact, been nobody in the first place, and are we nobody still?”
• “Gregor Samsa awakes one day, changed forever.” Talks about the unpredictability of life.

06.04.2016 | Beginning to Visualize

Ideas

Dramatic and illustrative. Showing him as a lonely giant insect, in a human environment but made to feel inhuman.

I really like the idea of doing printmaking for this, since it is a less precise and perfect means of communication.

Maybe Gregor could be creeping out of his room. This could add a lot of drama, and perhaps make the viewer of the cover misconstrue Gregor to be violent, like the family did.

Or perhaps the juxtaposition of the beetle onto Gregor’s face.

I could see it being like a Rorschach Test. Hinting at whether he is a human or an insect? Over a very faded image of a person. It would also hint at the way that his room became so messy and dirty and sad. I am playing with the way that his metamorphosis had a tainting effect on the home. And how it was like his former identity was erased.

Inspiration

The Faded look.

The Inkblot, Shadows, Negative Space.

Inspiring juxtapositions.

These two are a bit different, but I thought that they were cool too. I love the drama.

Color Palettes

I like the use of white, black and red.

I will experiment with the amount of each color.

Paint Swatches.

The black contrasts against the light background. Bits of red stand out because it is the most saturated color. The type will be the lightest value on the cover, because it will be a pure white.

More on the Background Colors:

Background colors.

A hint of very pale green in the light background will make the red stand out because of simultaneous contrast.