Conceptual Book Cover Series
By: Grant Miller
Hello! For this project in my Graphic Design class at Brigham Young University, Idaho, I chose the classic Shakespeare tragedy: "Othello". As shown below, this series of designs consist of three distinct styles while pertaining to the intents and themes of the original author and his story. The three conceptual styles are: Typography, Physical/Handmade Materials, and Designer's Choice, respectively.
This Project followed guidelines such as research, brainstorms, peer critiques, and weekly discussion boards over the course of approximately four weeks. These concept designs are presented on 3D Photoshop mockups as attributed at:
or:
<a href="https://www.freepik.com/free-psd/book-hardcover-mockup_9866173.htm#query=book%20cover%20mockup&position=6&from_view=keyword&track=ais">Image by Vectonauta</a>
And without further ado, Conceptual Book Cover Designs: "Othello"
Typography. The first design I worked on. I quickly fell in love with the imagery and metaphor behind the positioning and sizing of the letters. The large 'O' can be seen as Othello's ear, while the rest of the 'thello' is the deceitful lies Iago poisons Othello with that propels the story into tragedy. The letters on their own could not fill the space like I wanted, so I added these pseudo-corbel designs into the far corners to mimic the feeling of an older gilded book.
Physical/ Handmade Materials. I had the most inspiration and fun creating this design. In the movie "Othello" (1995), Iago has a moment of soliloquy where he addresses the audience and explains his position with Othello and Desdemona with chess pieces. Taking from this imagery that the movie helped solidify with me, Iago represents the knight, a vile red for isolation and danger, and Othello as the king, and Desdemona as the queen. I took the photo myself on my phone in two different shots: one with both the king and queen pieces in focus, and one with the knight in focus. I then masked the in-focus knight into the in-focus king/queen picture in Photoshop in order to have relative depth but to view the overall image with ease.
Designer's Choice. My favorite according to technicality. In "Othello", as any Shakespearean tragedy ends, Othello commits suicide because of the despair he felt when he realizes his wife Desdemona was faithful and did not have to die. The knife he would have used is a 16th century Venetian fusetto. The strawberry handkerchief is a key plot catalyst, as it is used by Iago to bring about Othello's destruction; it belongs to Desdemona and is a token from Othello as a testament to his love and devotion for her. I used the Adobe Capture app to outline the basic structure of the dagger, and then I stylized and edited the shape and colors in Illustrator to become a smart object in Photoshop. I used the same process on an image of a cloth on a point to realistically overlay it onto the dagger.
