Background
About
Ninth Letter is a literary magazine, where different writers submit their work to in hopes of getting a slot in the books roster. It is sponsored by the University of Illinois.
For this project, my task was to create the covers, interior pages, and chapter illustrations based on the contents of the writings within. To do this, I had to thoroughly read through the stories I was given, and find a common motif that I could use to make the theme of the magazine.
Timeline
January 2021 to May 2021 (About 3 weeks)
Programs Used
Photoshop • InDesign • After Effects
Skills & Practices
Cover Design • Type Setting • Layout Design
What I Was Given
Ninth Letter logo mark and the stories
What I Designed
Book cover & spine, interior pages, and chapter illustrations
Final Work
This section contains all of the finalized designs I made; featuring the cover, spine, back cover, inside matter, contents, and chapter opener content.
Process Work
Initial Book Cover Sketches
There were three Initial cover sketches. for this project, I was given 2 stores to read through and come up with a common theme for. Both had themes of separation, broken ties, and feeling trapped/lost. So, these sketches explore those ideas through the use of broken glass, distortion, and pits of darkness.
Final Cover Sketch
The cover sketch below depicts someone trapped behind a broken screen, reaching towards the viewer for help. The viewer knows they are there, but the victim is blurry and distorted, rendering it hard for the viewer to clearly make out what they are doing and saying. This was supposed to set a dreary, depressing tone for the book, as the stories within it aren't uplifting, but more so mysterious, dark, depressing, etc..
This would have been the final design, but after showing others and gathering feedback, it didn't truly capture the 'behind a screen' look that I initially wanted it to have. So, I revised it to be on a black background instead, and added further details from there to get my actual final cover design, and the theme I used from the rest of the parts of the book.
Chapter Opener Ideas
Keepers of Bees
This process was a very long one, with a ton of iterations. The video explains how I designed the title by hand and added digital elements to enhance it and integrate it with the body copy text.
The finalized chapter opener design here was published in the official Ninth Letter book for the Spring/summer 2021 issue. http://www.ninthletter.com/journal/335-spring-21
The Sky At Night
Once again, the process of making this was also long, which is why it is explained in the video below. I was inspired to make my opener illustration after a classmate of mine, Lyndon, came up with an idea that stuck with me. Using his idea around skeletons and stars, combined with my own ideas around death and the passage of time, I crafted this chapter opener illustration.
"I hope you were able to get a feel of my process when it comes to creating illustrations here. Making various elements for this book was a long and rewarding process. It's always a satisfying feeling to slowly watch an idea filter out from your head onto paper."
-C.P.