alphabet Book Cover
A book cover redesign for Inger Christensen's award-winning novel alphabet.
Role
Graphic Designer
Duration
October - November 2022
Tool
InDesign
Type
Baruch College Course
Intermediate Graphic Communication: Publication Design
Design Process
The alphabet cover is redesigned to more effectively portray the book's meanings so prospective readers become interested in picking up the book.
01. Key Insights
I researched alphabet to come up with a clear design direction that would align with what the book is about:
I discovered that Inger Christensen's alphabet is a book of poems that discuss the infinite dualities of beauty and danger in everyday life. This message is seen by Christensen structuring her poems around Fibonacci's mathematical sequence (each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers) by growing the length of each successive poem. Also related to the Fibonacci sequence is the golden ratio.
02. Sketches
I sketched two different ideas for the book cover design that both portray the book's meaning.
Cover Design One:
I wanted to show the duality by utilizing white for the spine and black for the front and back covers. The increasing size font of the title and gold accent color are used to represent the use of Fibonacci’s sequence in alphabet.
Cover Design Two:
I wanted to show the duality by utilizing the color grey for the book cover. On the front book cover the title, author name, and translator name are written using different line placements to indicate the Fibonacci sequence. The gold accent color represents Fibonacci’s sequence.
03. Draft Book Cover Design
Based on the key insights and Cover Design One sketch, I created a draft of the book cover.
04. Final Book Cover Design
The final book cover design (front cover, spine, and back cover) builds on the draft design. There is now less contrast between the black and white colors for higher readability. The increasing size font of the title is more noticeable and it is in gold to more clearly reference Fibonacci’s sequence and golden ratio. I added the full author blurbs and a more in depth description of alphabet to provide a more comprehensive overview of the book.
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