In this project we designed a book jacket for a book jacket about the life, work, and legacy of Jan Tschichold. The content should inform the design, but also this project focuses on hierarchy of typographical elements. The book dimensions are 7" x 10" x 1" and we were limited to two PMS colors plus the white of the book. Check out my dropmark to see my progress on this project.
The first design leans heavily into Jan's early work with bold contrast, typographic lines, angles, all set in Futura (with various weights and styles). This design focuses on Jan Tschichold and the book company as hierarchal elements - if someone was looking for a book on Jan this would be it! Also, in a lot of his work he emphasized and elevated the book companies he worked with, connecting his periods/styles with specific book companies.
In the second design I added more color (a subtle triad that hints at his work with Penguin) and added Garamond (a classic serif font to connect to Jan's later period), all while keeping the angles and shapes that stand out and break rules. By combining different fonts (Futura and Garamond) I hinted at Jan's career spanning multiple decades and styles.
The third design was the most successful in that it was pleasing to read, relayed an idea of continuation, balance, and span (with graphic elements), focused on "master typographer", all set in Futura.
As I revised the third design I changed the colors to increase contrast. Jan was a bold person, both in design and in life, and a book about both should be high contrast. I removed some of the graphic elements and angled the typographic line to bend some of the rules a bit (something Jan was know for). In this design the emphasis is on "typographer" on the front and "his life, work, & legacy" on the back. By breaking up "typographer" phonetically the design adds more nuance and hones in on a graphic design audience. The final design is also all set in Futura, but I omitted the oblique variant since it made the design too busy.
The final full spread of the book jack shows all the information, has a modern green and pink color palette, and uses unique elements to tell a story (phonetic breaks, typographic line).
