Once Maithili told me, designing book cover is like designing movie poster. Only difference is the size. All design principles remain the same. It should have loud shelf value, also how a movie poster communicates 3 hrs in a single sheet similarly the book cover should manage to tell the gist of 300 pages.
I completely agree with her when I recently got an opportunity to design a book cover. The story is about a guy called Jamal who became a terrorist after stabbing a police inspector and being beaten to death, he calls himself JIMMY. The author Omair Ahmed aesthetically captured the tragic life of Jamal and his father Rafiq and circumstances which transformed him to become aberrant human being. This story is set in northern part of UP, India around 1990.
After reading synopsis and few chapters of this fiction I decided only calligraphy would do the justice for this kind of subject. Thankfully I managed to reflect the same expressions of the content through the words. Editor, design head and the most important the author accepted the result and were happy too about the cover.
I got the chance to attend the launch of the book too. I was quite thrilled to see the blown up of cover used as promotion materials, backdrop etc. In the night this contrasting cover with black calligraphy on the stark white background with red accent was standing out beautifully in ambiance.
Here its the book:
And here is the full spread, designing a book jacket is 'more' fun, more scope to play.
I completely agree with her when I recently got an opportunity to design a book cover. The story is about a guy called Jamal who became a terrorist after stabbing a police inspector and being beaten to death, he calls himself JIMMY. The author Omair Ahmed aesthetically captured the tragic life of Jamal and his father Rafiq and circumstances which transformed him to become aberrant human being. This story is set in northern part of UP, India around 1990.
After reading synopsis and few chapters of this fiction I decided only calligraphy would do the justice for this kind of subject. Thankfully I managed to reflect the same expressions of the content through the words. Editor, design head and the most important the author accepted the result and were happy too about the cover.
I got the chance to attend the launch of the book too. I was quite thrilled to see the blown up of cover used as promotion materials, backdrop etc. In the night this contrasting cover with black calligraphy on the stark white background with red accent was standing out beautifully in ambiance.
Here its the book:
And here is the full spread, designing a book jacket is 'more' fun, more scope to play.
Photo Credits: Aman Sagar
7 comments:
Brilliant is all that I can say Nikheel....
Brilliant Work...actually that was the only word that came out of my mouth too after seeing the work...Keep Up the Good Work :)
Kanchan
wah bhai wah! macha diya :) all the best for many more to come...
looks great nikheel.
and even greater to see the excitement :)
Nikheel,
only met you briefly at the launch, and was only able to say thanks. But I was shown two designs, one with the shadow of the man walking, white background, and the other which we finally went with for the cover.
I thought both were excellent, and there was a fierce voting war among friends & family as to what was the better one -- but we were all very impressed. I have a personal fondness for calligraphy, so I was very happy you used that touch. Have you seen the work of Hassan Musa, by any chance?
Anyway, just wanted to say thanks once again, and I hope you find the book worthy of your efforts.
Best,
Omair
Wow! Excellent interpretation!!!!
Brilliant Work!
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