GRETA GILLEN
BOOK COVER PROJECT TYPOGRAPHY
PARAGRAPHS The objective of this project is to create a book cover for Chip Kidd’s novel, The Cheese Monkeys. The first step of this is to read the book and write about what our perception of the book was.
The overall tone of The Cheese Monkeys is quirky, sarcastic, and fun. The narrator describes his surroundings and the people in his life with long, descriptive, and honest sentences. The Cheese Monkeys holds nothing back when it comes to plot or description. It often takes unexpected turns, but the book’s humor stays strong throughout. Some of the typographic qualities that came to mind for me was something that looked more hand-drawn and messy, as opposed to clean and simple text. It should be bold, and stand out from the page. It could also be fun to use popular type from that time period. Some of the imagery that I thought of for my sketches are fire, art supplies, doublemint gum, x-acto knives and polaroids. Some of the colors that came to mind for me are a bright orangeyellow, or a green. Then, we went to the library for inspiration for our own book covers, so we could see how other designers successfully did theirs.
INSPIRATION - BOOK COVER
INSPIRATION - BOOK COVER
SKETCHES After that, we created 20-30 sketches based on our inspiration and our perecptions. I drew inspiration from my favorite parts of the book, as well as the general idea of graphic design and the overall tone of the book.
SKETCHES
Once I created some rough initial sketches, I felt that for the few I would show to the class, I wanted to be made on InDesign. I refined four of my ideas for the computer.
REFINED SKETCHES
REFINED SKETCHES
FINAL SKETCHES
I narrowed down my sketches that I presented down to two, the one with the matchstick, and the yellow-orange one. I really liked the simplicity and minimalism of the matchstick one, but I liked the boldness and colors of the yellow-orange one.
FINAL SKETCHES
FINAL COVER After refining my two narrowed down sketches, I decided to choose the yellow-orange cover with the bold, messy type. I felt that while this is not a literal portrayal of anything in the book, it expresses the fun, quirky, and bizarre tone thorugh my color and type choices. For typefaces, I used Mink as the main typeface, becuase it looks hand drwan and chaotic. This contrasts with the clean and simple Avenir that I used for the supporting text. I kept the colors simple, but contrasting- using black and white mixed with the yellow-orange color of Kraft American cheese, a nod back to the title of the book. Only using one color besides black and white really makes it pop. The biggest change I made to the layout was changing the back cover, moving “A New York Times Notable Book� to the bottom of the page, and doing it in the same type style as the front title, at an angle, using Mink. I did make it smaller, and in the cheese color. The fact that they are both slanted at the same angle makes it look like thy are continuing into each other, and leads the viewer’s eye through the composition.
On both of the sketches, I refined the back cover to be more than just filler text, and formatted it to include the quotes. On the matchstick one, I changed the spine to make it look more like a matchbox.
FINAL COVER
-The Times (London) “ This story about growing up and finding your calling is funnyand, almost despity itself, moving. here the big ideas- about growing, working , loving- are all inside.”
-New York Times Book Review “ An irresistible comic voice that sounds so modern, and so right, even as it recreates the undergraduate life of the late 1950’s.”
-Los Angeles Times Book Review “ Channeling Holden Caufield via David Sedaris. Kidd produces a stellar debut.”
-Publishers Weekly “A joyride.”
-Miami Herald “ Not only is [The Cheese Monkeys] sharp and funny, it’s also one of the year’s most original American novels.”
-Toronto Globe and Mail
CHIP KIDD THE CHEESE MONKEYSKEYS
“ It is rare for a book to produce unconrollable laughter as loud as this one did. The narrator is at art college in the 1950’s, and after failing to get the course he wants, finds himself attending ‘Introduction to Graphic Design,’ taught by the inspiring, sadistic, and compelling Professor Winter Sorbeck. Through humiliation and excess he shows his naive young charges how to see the world though new eyes. This brilliantly entertaining debut- intelligent, pitch-perfect, and enlightening.”
FINAL COVER
CHIP KIDD
A NOVEL IN TWO SEMESTERS
FRONT MATTER INSPIRATION The next step was to create the front matter for the book. Again we looked to other books for inspiration. Mine is a tital of seven pages. I continued using the same typefaces as the cover, Mink and Avenir. I also used Baskerville as the body copy for the first chapter, since it would be easier to read than a sans serif. I used Mink at the same angle as the cover to introduce the title, contents, and the Fall Semester portion of the book. With the contents and copyright information, I put the information in one of the bottom quarters of the page to create symmetry. For the Fall semester page, I have the words “Fall Semester” in the Mink typeface, but I have the year, 1957, in bold Avenir, the smae style as the author’s name on the book cover. This creates a sense of unity and contrast.
FRONT MATTER
FRONT MATTER
FRONT MATTER
FRONT MATTER
FRONT MATTER
FRONT MATTER
FRONT MATTER