"This is Love Book Cover Trilogy"
ART 125 – Intro to Graphic Design
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I was tasked with choosing three episodes from a Podcast Series which I would interpret into book covers. The challenge was to represent each story well while keeping a cohesive aesthetic among all three covers. The way the instructor guided this assignment focused heavily on the creative process, research, developing ideas, and symbolic thinking.
The solution to the design content should emerge from its content.
1. Research.
I listened to the podcasts episodes, took notes, did further research about the episodes' subjects in order to honor the themes of each anecdote. My goal was find what was unique about each story and represent that on the cover. I wanted to give a glimpse into the book and maintain mystery. Sorting through ideas mostly took place through thought webs and lists of words related to other ideas. I chose the strongest or most unique ideas and carried those into my sketching phase.
How do I represent these ideas?
2. Sketching
One of the stories was about a lonely snail unique who unlike other snails because he is left-coiled. This rarity prevented him from mating with other snails and makes for a very interesting story that I will link below.
One of the visual ways I could cue readers in to the story was through a snail. But what about a snail? The sketching phase served as exploration to how many was I could represent a snail. I could sketch its trail, its shell, its face, its making contact with another snail, and so on. This stage wasn't geared towards specificity. The goal was simply to get an idea down on paper could be graphically interesting and had room for further development in style and production.
How do I represent these ideas?
3. Exploration.
The strongest of ideas from my sketches were carried into an exploration phase. One of these ideas was a spiral which could represent a snail's coil, a romantic rose, the crossing of paths, or a trail left behind from a snail. This stage of the creative process had me experimenting with different materials and considering production techniques in printing.
I eventually carried some drafts of the first book through to a three mocked-up product covers for one book with three varying styles. I would go on to choose one of the three styles to carry on with the two remaining stories.
You can listen to the podcast episodes that I chose for this assignment here.
