think carrie, think!

After many hours of work and wanting to rip up five trees worth of paper, my three John Cage book covers are done. And I am happy with what I have.

(click to enlarge; will open a new window)

The final constraints (on top of the constraints we were given before) were that we were only allowed to use three colors throughout all three covers. Adding color was a big challenge for a lot of us. Choosing colors that made sense with our covers, conveyed proper meaning, and didn’t distract from the typography was hard and unfamiliar to me… I’m used to choosing colors just because they look good.

Working the three covers as an entire system was also challenging… we worked on the covers one by one so it wasn’t until the very end that I started tweaking things so that all three work as a complete system. Placing the text on the spine, toying with the blue color that’s supposed to let your eyes bounce around each cover, etc.

In the end I think I overcame a lot of graphic design fears (color, type as image, graphical forms) and tried things I didn’t think I could do. It was frustrating, but fun, and I have good work to show for it. It also helped that Kristin, our prof, liked my set of covers.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 and is filed under design, school, typography.