Process Book: 1984 Book Cover

SETTING THE STAGE

Maggie Chuang

Typography II Fall 2017

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1. RESEARCH

What did you turn to for reference, inspiration, and understanding for your project?

How did it influence— directly or indirectly—what you made?

2. DISCOVERY

What was your process for generating possible ideas for the project? How wide and deep did you explore before coming to a final idea? Did your discovery process generate outcomes that were successful?

3. REFINEMENT

How did you refine your work? How did you make decisions as you refined your idea?

What criteria did you use for evaluation?

Did you find your final refined idea to be the final iteration of your idea?

4. CRITICISM

What criticism did you receive from your peers and faculty about your project? Did you agree or disagree with it? What did you learn from criticism?

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RESEARCH

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Research beforehand was particularly critical for this project, because I wanted to create a cover that contrasted existing covers of 1984 to some extent. I approached my research in two ways: first, a general study into experimental type and book covers. It was inspiring to see different techniques toward 3D type, and how the scenes created often evoked a lot of information through materials and composition alone. Out of the book examples I found, I tended to gravitate towards simple and clear ideas, that held some sort of symbolism related to the story.

Next, I directed my research toward existing covers for 1984, including the original, the redesigns, and the foreign editions; I noticed a pattern among them, particularly in theme and mood. Most of the covers dealt with the theme of surveillance within the novel, or emphasized urban decay and propaganda. Each cover consistently had a dark, foreboding feeling to it, to emulate the lurking fears the protagonist himself holds.

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samples of research for 3D type

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samples of research for general book covers

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samples of research for 1984 covers

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This version of 1984 was an influential one in my conceptual phase, because it is done in such a unique style compared to the others. I wanted to emulate the bizarre, visually intriguing style that this cover brings.

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DISCOVERY

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I started my process by honing in on my conceptual goal for the cover, in terms of what theme I wanted to convey and what mood it should have. Early on, I identified three large themes that could be communicated in my project: surveillance, censorship, and/or manipulation.

None of these messages were particularly unique compared to previous versions of 1984, so I focused on setting my cover apart with its mood. Instead of creating an image that was quietly haunting and eerie, I wanted to create something loud and slightly absurd. During my own reading of the novel, I resonated with Orwell’s attempt to warn his contemporaries by creating an obviously bizarre and disturbed society.

Having said that, a bold warning seemed like a style that best paralleled the author’s intent in 1984.

After initially narrowing down ideas, I started looking into possible materials that work for the book jacket. I began experimenting primarily with newspapers, black tape, and googly eyes—all materials I thought closely connected to my concepts, while also providing opportunities for graphic and high-contrast images.

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1984 Nineteen Eighty Four 1984 1984 1984

early material tests, as well as some quick studies in font choices for the title

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tests of my earlier material tests, including a newspaper scene that was meant to symbolize the censorship in the novel

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More in-depth studies with the googly eyes, with color added. The hand was meant to stand in for an artist’s mannequin I was considering using.

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Studies in changing light, perspective, and more photography-based factors. In this stage I started exploring how the eyeballs created patterns on top of the type.

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REFINEMENT

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Refinement of my cover began with narrowing down to a single concept. Beginning my process with three entertwining themes led to more complicated images that weren’t communicating effectively; I needed to narrow down my idea to one theme so that I could focus on telling a concise, clear story. After lots of feedback and more experimenting, I chose the path of surveillance, represented by googly eyes. Now varying my images based on this new direction, I based my experiments on factors such as lighting, angle, perspective, size, color, even density of eyes.

By the end of my process, I had decided to use googly eyes to cover a page of continuous, random numbers; the only numbers that would be uncovered would be “1984”.

The typographic style of the numbers makes them appear rigid, strong, and uniform, similar to the qualities of the Party.

By overwhelming them with the eyes, I hoped to make a clear statement about the relationship of surveillance and the society of 1984.

The non-digital nature of this project motivated me to play around with my concept a lot—I didn’t settle on a composition until the last few phases, and constantly felt open to trying new completely new set-ups. `

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further experiements in lighting/repetition etc.

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Refined experiments, focused on pinning down lighting and angle. Although the top-down shot isn’t radical, it emphasized the Party’s uniformity and rigidity that I was emulating in the number series.

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final photograph chosen for the cover

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This stage also involved the development of my flaps for the jacket. I chose to stick with solid colors for the flaps in order to support the graphic, high-contrast visuals I was creating for the covers. I also wanted to simplify the flap imagery, since the cover was repetetive and busy due to the eyeballs.

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1984

1984

1984

1984

Born Eric Arthur Blair in Motihari, Bengal, India, in 1903, George Orwell, novelist, essayist and critic, went on to become best known for his novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Born Eric Arthur Blair in Motihari, Bengal, India, in 1903, George Orwell, novelist, essayist and critic, went on to become best known for his novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Born Eric Arthur Blair in Motihari, Bengal, India, in 1903, George Orwell, novelist, essayist and critic, went on to become best known for his novels Animal Farm and Nineteen EightyFour.

Born Eric Arthur Blair in Motihari, Bengal, India, in 1903, George Orwell, novelist, essayist and critic, went on to become best known for his novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

I also settled on my typefaces in this phase. To match the bold, in-your-face style I was aiming for, I opted for League Gothic for the title/author. I used Mrs Eaves for supplementary information.

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CRITICISM

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A concern about my cover was that it did not accurately capture the mood and darkness of 1984. I do agree with this criticism, because I intentionally avoided the typical dystopic, doomsday conventions, and the googly eyes certainly aren’t a disturbing medium. However, I was aiming to emulate a warning, and a slightly absurd one at that, since that was intention behind the design of 1984’s society. To this end, I think my cover was much more effective.

Personally, I think a limit of my cover was that the my three-dimensional type is generally flatter and not so out-of-the-box creative compared to other projects. I also acknowledge this, and think it would have been interesting to see where my book cover would have gone if I had forced myself to make the type out of something. However, I am happy with the concept behind my cover, and my approach still communicated it clearly and effectively. Most likely, I will take the criticisms from this book cover and apply them to my brainstorming and discovery in future projects.

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final layout for the book jacket

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