This project was all about designing something to reflect the work of the subject. I began by researching designer April Greiman and her work within the world of graphic design. Not only did I look to the design itself for inspiration, but I looked beyond the surface level of the designs to the meaning behind it all. When approaching the design of the dust jacket for her book Hybrid Imagery, I embraced the qualities found in her method. Qualities such as: playful, experimental, provocative, nonconformist, explorative, etc. These were the basis for my own work, and it was my goal to communicate these things in my own visual work. I achieved this through the images selected, the color pallets, and the placement and hierarchy of typography within the design. Inspiration and design process for this project can be found here!
This first design was focused solely on typography. I established a hierarchy within the text communicating the most important message for the cover. In this cover, the most important text is the author's first name "April." I also brought in a variety of fonts and orientations/sizes of font to give the cover a look that is playful and nonconformist. Fonts used: Platelet, Rockwell, Bickham, Bodoni, Futura, Helvetica, Garamond
The focus of this cover was April Greiman herself. My design for this cover used two different pictures of Greiman as the framework, but I flipped the design on it's head (literally in the case of the front cover). Because April Greiman was the main focus of this design, I wanted to have as little text on the front as possible. I opted to only put April Greiman's name on the front and back covers, and I put the title and publishing information on the inside flaps. My goal when choosing the placement of my text was to make the end result nonconformist to the typical style of book publishing.
The focus of this cover was visual metaphor. In my approach to this design, I considered the aforementioned descriptors and used them as inspiration for my design as well as the images within my design. Within the design of this cover, you can see images that represent the metaphors nonconformity, playfulness, and exploration. I tried to make my design provocative in the way that the viewer has to look at the images closely to find the meaning.
This image gives a good view of the front cover, while also giving a little peek at the inside sleeve. In all of my covers I tried to extend the design of the front cover so that it would be incorporated into the inside sleeve as well. I believe that this gave the cover and sleeves an overall appearance of unity.
This is the back cover of my book. In the spirit of nonconformity, I chose to make the text read from the back cover to the front cover. Not only did this give the cover a nontraditional and unique appearance, but it also gave the cover the insinuation of being one big design instead of several
smaller separate designs.
Here is a break down of all views of my cover. This view gives you a good look at the inside flaps that are normally hidden within the book. This shows how you can make one cohesive design that then gets broken up into sections that can be viewed in smaller sections.
