Book Cover Design Project
Project 2 ART 235
Project Description
This book cover design project was about creating three different book covers that express the author's agenda behind writing the story. I got to pick from a list of famous books that had strong themes. I picked the book The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. I used the themes from the book to create three different book covers for the book. Each book cover needed to be something different. The first book cover I created using typography. The second book cover I hand crafted with paper. The third book cover I chose to create digitally with Illustrator. With each of these three book covers I incorporated the use of the six creative strategies. These book covers are meant to show what the author was trying to express through the storyline of the book. The book covers are designed to be a standard size 6x9in. The covers have the title of the book and the authors name. There is no need for any other text on the covers. After I created the book covers I used Photoshop to create some mockups so you can envision what the designs would look like on a book.
Book Cover One: Typography
For this design I used Illustrator and created a cover using typography. For this cover I used contrasting colors to create a great focal point. Your eyes are drawn straight to the word “SEA”. The text is easy to read and gives you a moving motion as if you were on the water. The main theme of this cover is that the old man thought he was strong enough for the sea but in the end the sea dragged him down and won. I used the creative strategies called isolation and metaphor. For isolation I moved words “and the Sea” to be away from the rest so that you would focus on them. For metaphor I wanted to imply that the sea is all powerful and is dragging the old man down.
Book Cover Two: Hand Crafted
For this design I hand crafted my book cover using paper. I used cut outs and water colors to create this design. This cover's focal point is the big dark fish. Once your eyes meet the fish they go straight to the old man because of the contrast against the fish. The water colored waves give you motion and texture that is very pleasing to the eye. I used scale to show the size difference of the old man and the fish which is also a foreshadow in the story that the fish was stronger than the man. The main theme of this cover is that the old man was no match for the big fish. The creative strategy that I used was material change or swap. I changed the fish eye for the old man which makes it a fun second level of viewing.
Book Cover Three: Designers Choice
For this design I created it digitally in Illustrator. This cover catches your eye right away
with the big shark and pop of red color. The white space draws you into the story that is going on right on the front cover. It shows the drama of the book and how nature will always prevail with the shark being the hero. You can tell the shark is enticed by the blood dripping from the dead fish. This is also a foreshadow in the story. I used two creative strategies for this cover, physical shape/similarity and material change. For physical shape/similarity I used the dead fish for my letter T and it worked great because the dead fish looked a lot like the letter "T". For material change I used blood for my letter M. The main theme of this cover is that nature always finds a way to overcome humans. This cover excites the reader and makes them want to read the story.
