The project’s aim is designing a graphic product which could widen the expressive capacities and fruition ways of a book about travelling. The book is not meant to be only read, but it must also communicate the writer’s message in a visual manner. 

The book analyzed here is Journey to the East (Il Pellegrinaggio in Oriente) by Hermann Hesse. After a research phase about the author and its books, the challenge is finding out suggestions and meanings taken under consideration by the author. 

Reading the novel, sum of Hesse’s philosophy, is not only aimed to the comprehension of the plot, but also and above all to frame the plot within the author’s sensibility. 

 

The cover calls the interest in eastern philosophies of the author, and reflects his poetic and artistic conception, expressed in the novel as “legge del servire” (law of service), that is the focus of the entire plot. 

Starting with very poor and untreated text composition, parallel to the protagonist’s path of spiritual elevation, the text gradually becomes more refined and harmonious, enriched with typographic and stylistic elements.