Background
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"Voces Voci Voix Vozes" is a publication ran by Tufts University's Romance language department that showcases student literature written in the Romance languages. They approached me to design the cover for their Spring 2020 issue with a request for it to be hand drawn, unlike their previous digitally designed covers.
Visual Concept
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Taking inspiration from the publication's name, which translates to "voices" in Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese, I wanted to celebrate the fact that many different voices were coming together to share their writing under this one publication. Starting with the idea of representing voices as personalities, the cover evolved into the image of a throng of personalities, represented as a pile of heads, collectively shouting the namesake of the publication. I extended this idea into the lettering, with the letters jostling each other like the heads.
The initial drafts of the cover were hand drawn and inked. The first design (left), while interesting compositionally, was a little too abstract. The faces also felt out of place as they were too emoji-like and didn't capture the idea of diverse voices. The second design (right) better captured the image of diverse voices collectively coming together and was ultimately chosen. Note that the heads were later refined in the final cover.
The hand drawn drafts were scanned then digitally colored and polished. Ultimately, the bottom left design was selected.
Credits
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Creative Direction – Anh-Tuan Le
Design, Illustration, Lettering – Anh-Tuan Le
