Dark Matter Book Jacket
Tasked with choosing a book and completely re-designing the jacket for it, I chose the novel Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. The book follows a man thrust into an a parallel universe where everything he knows and loves is different. He must grapple with his life, his morality, and his worldview as he sees different versions of what his life could have been.
My goal became accessibility; I chose to appeal to a larger audience, hopefully reaching those who may not normally pick up a book in the sci-fi or thriller genre.
Process and Ideation
When I’m reading a book, I love to get halfway through the book and suddenly understand the design on the cover. My moodboards showed an abstract idea that felt right for the subject of the book, and that I felt I could use to attract all kinds of readers.
These were some of my early sketches based off of the moodboards above. When I’m reading, I love to get halfway through the book and suddenly understand what the cover means and why the author chose it. A lot of my sketches are based off of that idea; taking small or inconsequential elements from the story and making them the focus.
These were the first rough digital drafts of two of my sketches. I experimented a lot with texture, photography, color, and typography.
For my second round of digital drafts, I chose a direction to go in. The silhouetted heads represent the different versions of the main character and where they intersect.
I wasn’t entirely happy some of the elements. The typeface for the title felt too comic book-y, the texture on the spine wasn’t quite right, and the door didn’t look how I wanted it to.
Final Design and Mockup
Below is my final design and a mockup of what the jacket would look like on a book. My overall hope is that any reader could pick up this book and be excited by the cover. Sci-fi fans can still recognize it as a sci-fi novel from the color palette and the typeface choices. The cover gives the reader the fun “Oh, I understand it now!” feeling that I love.
My final book cover
The original book cover
Through this project, I learned how to better work with printed media and how to design with a specific target audience in mind. I enjoyed the process and am very proud of my result.