Imagery
I wanted the focal point of the poster to be the blood printed type, so the accompanying imagery on the poster needed to be subtle so as not to overshadow this.
To reflect the passing of time I initially had two ideas. The first of these was to use a gradient behind the type to represent erosion and fading, the second was to set the page up like a calendar. The gradient idea was very vague and would've been difficult to execute well because of the two colour stipulation of the brief, whereas the calendar idea was very literal and contrasted with the more conceptual idea of using blood to print with.
The second idea developed into using a planetary orbit diagram, which is appropriate because our orbit around this sun is what causes the seasons to change and years to pass. Not only this, but the calendar we use today that is dictated by our orbit around the sun is the Gregorian calendar, which was changed from the Julian calendar in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII to change the date Easter was celebrated on the day it was originally celebrated on by the early Church, this illustrates one of the books ideas that people high up in the church have more power than they should have. On top this the connotations of 'big questions' that are carried with space related imagery are also carried with philosophy as an area of study.
Layout
The cover is an element of the sleeve, so I designed it in this context to make sure I wouldn't have any problems transferring the cover into a sleeve. To make the imagery cohesive between the front and back I made sure the orbits wrapped around the spine and placed the focal point of the orbits on a position dictated by a golden-ratio based grid to reflect the naturally occurring nature of the solar system.
The title and Nietzsche's name are placed unusually in the lower portion of the page to represent how he lived his life out of the way. The blurb starts at the same height as the top as the title, which both had to be lowered slightly to move the blurb away from the focal point of the orbits. Nietzsche's name was placed in alignment with the bottom of the blurb. The blurb doesn't cover the full width of the page in order to leave some of the orbits unobscured, and is placed on the left side to balance out the barcode, which placed traditionally in the bottom right corner. Adding the publishers mark above the barcode balanced out the type even more.
The positioning of the text on the spine means it aligns centrally with the blurb.
Fonts and Colours
I chose to use Futura for because it was inspired by the Bauhaus, giving it underlying German connotations, and when it was designed it made no attempt to look traditional, giving it the same forward thinking principles as Nietzsche's thoughts. The fact that it's sans serif leaves more room for imperfections along the straight edges when I print in blood, as this gives it a more human feel.
Condensed bold was used on the cover because the type needed to reflect the fact bold nature of the name of the book, this was also the reason full capitals were used for the title. Nietzsche's name isn't in full capitals in order to further emphasise the full capitalisation of the title. Both theses will be printed in blood, as the use of blood represents the pain Nietzsche was in throughout his life and a similarity between him and myself in the similarity of having questioned a heavily religious family background in our teenage years, as well as being reference to the below quote from another of Nietzsche's books.
'Of all writings I love only that which is written with blood'
Potential Processes
Debossing
I want to deboss the orbits so they look to sit behind the text. This is preferred to embossing to represent Nietzsche trying to rise above his illnesses. Using a deboss to show this has to be done rather that printing because to try and represent the same thing by printing I would have to use a colour lighter than the stock as my second colour (the first being the blood), leaving me with very few options for the blurb etc.
Stencilling
The debossing of the orbit rings will be done before the printing so as not to risk cracking the ink or tearing the stock (which would've been weakened having soaked up the blood). Because the stock will now have an uneven surface, making printing blocks won't work because they won't reach into the debossed area of the stock. To get around this I'll make a stencil for the text, and apply the blood/ink to the page manually, probably using a paint brush. Hopefully the blood/ink will run through the debossed areas slightly, which will then give them a similar use to a vein/artery as well as their symbolic use, which won't be made clear in the poster because they continue around the spine and onto the back of the book.
Digital Printing
The blurb and publisher marks etc on the back of the book are small and fine, and so I need to use a process that makes them as clear as possible, digital printing is the method that best fits this as it removes the room for human error that comes with screen printing.
Halftone
If the debossed orbits hinder the legibility of some of the blurb on the back of the book, or make the folding of the spine difficult, they'll be printed in halftone. If this still effects readability of the blurb I will have to block out the area behind the text. This is something I want to avoid doing though.
Process-Informed Design Changes
Stock
Due to using debossing I'll need to use a thick stock. I chose to use 250gsm Brite White from G. F. Smith's Parche Marque range because it's thick enough to use for embossing, thin enough to fold with relative ease, it's texture feels like it could absorb some of blood if it needed too, keeping it fairly sturdy, and it's off white colour should allow the colour of the blood to stay fairly true.
Layout
After looking into embossing and debossing tips, I found that it wasn't feasible to deboss areas that had fairly small text on them that wasn't bold without affecting it's readability. I then looked into halftoning instead of embossing, but this looked terrible, with or without a blocked out area behind the text.
The only alternative to this was to move the text so it wasn't covering the same area as any of debossing. By moving it to the top left the cover remains unaffected, which means that the poster will still work as intended, but the jacket as a whole has a better sense of balance about it. Moving the publishers logo to the top helps your eye border the back of the book, which is important when you see the jacket placed flat. I also moved the spine text so it was centrally aligned with the focal point of the orbits, but had to remove Nietzsche's name from it in order for it to fit.
Fonts
Using stencils brings up issues with the counters in letters, which made Futura unusable as it was. It was suggested to me by Danny that I use a font called DIN Schablonierschrift, a stencil font that had similar dimensions to what I was using. After I looked into this I found that whilst it was usable for the title, it didn't have a lower case font to use for Nietzsche's name. I tried using the capitals for the name, but found that at a small size the gaps in the stencils were too narrow to be usable.
Rather than mix use the two fonts in combination with each other I decided to modify Futura to be usable as a stencil. However, I still found that the gaps in the lower case were too narrow to be usable. Due to the small size of the counters in Nietzsche's name and the easily recognisable nature of the letters d and e, I feel that filling in the counters and continuing to use Futura shouldn't be too much of an issue.
This is how the final InDesign Files look.
I expect the final poster and sleeve will look something like this.
'Of all writings I love only that which is written with blood'
- F. Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The text on the back is in Futura Book 10pt black, as I found this to be the most legible. Using 10pt also allowed me to fit enough words in a row to make the text fully justified without the text being unreadable due to being too small. Having fully justified type keeps it looking tidy.
Potential Processes
Debossing
I want to deboss the orbits so they look to sit behind the text. This is preferred to embossing to represent Nietzsche trying to rise above his illnesses. Using a deboss to show this has to be done rather that printing because to try and represent the same thing by printing I would have to use a colour lighter than the stock as my second colour (the first being the blood), leaving me with very few options for the blurb etc.
Stencilling
The debossing of the orbit rings will be done before the printing so as not to risk cracking the ink or tearing the stock (which would've been weakened having soaked up the blood). Because the stock will now have an uneven surface, making printing blocks won't work because they won't reach into the debossed area of the stock. To get around this I'll make a stencil for the text, and apply the blood/ink to the page manually, probably using a paint brush. Hopefully the blood/ink will run through the debossed areas slightly, which will then give them a similar use to a vein/artery as well as their symbolic use, which won't be made clear in the poster because they continue around the spine and onto the back of the book.
Digital Printing
The blurb and publisher marks etc on the back of the book are small and fine, and so I need to use a process that makes them as clear as possible, digital printing is the method that best fits this as it removes the room for human error that comes with screen printing.
Halftone
If the debossed orbits hinder the legibility of some of the blurb on the back of the book, or make the folding of the spine difficult, they'll be printed in halftone. If this still effects readability of the blurb I will have to block out the area behind the text. This is something I want to avoid doing though.
Process-Informed Design Changes
Stock
Due to using debossing I'll need to use a thick stock. I chose to use 250gsm Brite White from G. F. Smith's Parche Marque range because it's thick enough to use for embossing, thin enough to fold with relative ease, it's texture feels like it could absorb some of blood if it needed too, keeping it fairly sturdy, and it's off white colour should allow the colour of the blood to stay fairly true.
Layout
After looking into embossing and debossing tips, I found that it wasn't feasible to deboss areas that had fairly small text on them that wasn't bold without affecting it's readability. I then looked into halftoning instead of embossing, but this looked terrible, with or without a blocked out area behind the text.
The only alternative to this was to move the text so it wasn't covering the same area as any of debossing. By moving it to the top left the cover remains unaffected, which means that the poster will still work as intended, but the jacket as a whole has a better sense of balance about it. Moving the publishers logo to the top helps your eye border the back of the book, which is important when you see the jacket placed flat. I also moved the spine text so it was centrally aligned with the focal point of the orbits, but had to remove Nietzsche's name from it in order for it to fit.
Fonts
Using stencils brings up issues with the counters in letters, which made Futura unusable as it was. It was suggested to me by Danny that I use a font called DIN Schablonierschrift, a stencil font that had similar dimensions to what I was using. After I looked into this I found that whilst it was usable for the title, it didn't have a lower case font to use for Nietzsche's name. I tried using the capitals for the name, but found that at a small size the gaps in the stencils were too narrow to be usable.
Rather than mix use the two fonts in combination with each other I decided to modify Futura to be usable as a stencil. However, I still found that the gaps in the lower case were too narrow to be usable. Due to the small size of the counters in Nietzsche's name and the easily recognisable nature of the letters d and e, I feel that filling in the counters and continuing to use Futura shouldn't be too much of an issue.
This is how the final InDesign Files look.
I expect the final poster and sleeve will look something like this.
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