Final-My Sister's Keeper: Cover and Spreads

 I decided to stay with the ribbon cover-I feel like the design successfully communicates the tone of the novel. Because, there is a lot of type on the front cover, I wanted to keep the inside flaps fairly simple. I kept the same color palette, and added the author's biography/portrait on the back flap.

 Despite the fact that I felt like using the image of a gold locket on the front cover was a little romance-novely, I still really wanted to incorporate this symbol into Anna's spread. For Anna, I chose the sans-serif font Optima. Anna is the youngest character, but she is very serious and mature. Optima is a "humanist" sans-serif, meaning it has more stroke contrast than Helvetica, and I feel like this is very fitting to Anna's character.

 

Jesse, Anna's older brother, in the simplest of terms, is an angsty delinquent. He has often felt ignored by his parents, who focus their attention almost exclusively on Kate, and he acts out in part to gain their attention. I chose Futura for Jesse's spread, because the font has an appearance of forwardness. In designing Futura, Renner avoided the decorative, eliminating non-essential elements. Jesse has a very bold, no-nonsense attitude, that I felt could be illustrated by this typeface. Additionally, I used the matches in this spread, because in the first paragraph of Jesse's first narration he tells a story about lighting perfume on fire as a boy.

 

Campbell Alexander, Anna's lawyer, initially fits the stereotype of a typical business man-arrogant and stiff. However as the novel develops, Campbell reveals many different layers of  his character. I chose Times New Roman for Campbell, solely because I view the type face as very classic and scholarly. As long as I can remember, my papers and reports were required to by typed in Times New Roman. Nevertheless, I feel like it is an appropriate choice for a lawyer.

Revised Cover

I'm feeling a lot better about this cover than the first. The image of the ribbon was originally red, so I had to take it into photoshop to edit the color. I decided to keep the color scheme from the original draft, because I think that the burgundy text tames the orange. I may go back and change a few minor spacing details, but otherwise I'm feeling confident in this design.

The inside cover flaps and narrator spreads will be up later tonight or tomorrow.

Cover: Take one

In the book, Anna wears a gold locket that she was given from her father at the age of six after the first bone marrow harvest for Kate. He said to Anna, "Anyone who was giving her sister such a major present deserved one of her own". Because this is such a huge symbol in the novel, I wanted to include it in the cover, but after I started working on the layout I started to feel as if the photography combined with the old style text made it look a little "romance novel-ish". 

This, of course, is not what I was going for, so I'm going to work on either finding another image, or switching directions to a graphic layout. I originally wanted an orange ribbon to represent leukemia, but found the orange silk instead. Now I'm thinking I'll go back to the ribbon idea. If I can't find either a photo or illustration that will work, I suppose I'll play around with an orange background.

Novel Decision!

My Sister's Keeper is a novel written by Jodi Picoult in 2004. It tells the story of a young girl Anna who was conceived as a bone marrow match for her older sister Kate. Kate suffers from acute promyelocytic leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. By age thirteen, Anna has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that Kate can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. Anna has been willing to donate whatever Kate has needed, until, at thirteen, she is told that she will have to donate one of her kidneys. The surgery required for both Kate and Anna would be major, and dangerous for both girls. Kate could die during surgery, and the procedure could also have a serious impact on Anna's life. Anna petitions for medical emancipation with the help of lawyer Campbell Alexander, so that she will be able to make her own decisions regarding her medical treatment and the donation of her kidney.

There are eleven characters in My Sister's Keeper, and about half of them narrate throughout the book. Interestingly enough, Picoult has already chosen different fonts for each narrator. Over the next couple of days, my job is to think about why she made these decisions, and how they affect my initial impression of each character. This will maybe assist me in selecting my own fonts for each narrator. I'll also be thinking about which three of the narrators I want to create spreads for.

Dictionary Jacket (edited)

I decided to make some changes to the dictionary cover/flaps, in hopes of creating a stronger cohesion between the cover and the definition spreads.

2nd Definition: "baseless"

Dictionary Jacket

Definition: Juxtaposition

Gutenberg Brochure

Corrections to Early Letterform

After taking the suggestions of my classmates from the critique, I went back in to work on the first and last designs. 

With the first design, I experimented with adding and subtracting rectangles from the composition. I tried taking away the two larger rectangles, but decided the left side looked empty without them. Still feeling like the left margin was a bit too crowded, I then decided to move the Psi symbol over just a few spaces to the right, and lower the stroke of the two rectangles.

With the last design, I worked on repositioning the paragraph of text. Someone suggested taking it away completely, which I tried but didn't like after I ran a print test. Again, my problem was a crowded left margin, so I tried playing with the spacing of the paragraph, and the leading of the text. After decreasing the leading, I finally decided on about a quarter of an inch on the top and left side of the paragraph.

Project 1: Early Letterform

Psi

Psi is the twenty-third letter of the Greek alphabet: indicating the combination of /ps/ in both the classical and Modern Greek languages. Psi is usually transliterated as “ps”, but due to phonotactic, or pronunciation, constraints of the English language, its sound is often simplified to “s”. As a symbol, Psi has several meanings. Psi has been translated to represent and embody the soul, psyche, and the unknown. Also, the letter Psi is often used in physics as a symbol for a wave function in quantum mechanics. Other usage includes Psi as a symbol for the polygamma function, the reciprocal Fibonacci constant, rare nucleotide pseudouridilic acid, and the planet Neptune.

Paragraph Indications

"Conservative Century"

"Moderate Garamond"

"Adventurous Baskerville"

"Experimental Helvetica"

"Outrageous Didot"

Type Arrangements

Counter [xs]

Counter [ea]

Helvetica

Century Schoolbook

Didot

Baskerville