For this cover, I wanted to represent the books outpouring of data, facts and figures that had been collated and carefully researched. The book was originally based on an article for the New York magazine and was expanded to become a non-fiction book. The book isnât a story, itâs an essay, a collection of data, put together in one book to show exactly how much evidence there is that climate change is happening, and fast.
My original ideas on this were based around incorporating data on climate change as part of the imagery. I found a few examples of data visualisation that had been used by NOAA AND NASA and decided to use these as the jumping off point for conception.
In terms of design style, I was drawn to the works of designers like Roy Cranston.
I really liked the way he played with the typography shapes and sizes, changing the paths the type was on to compliment the shapes in the visual. I wanted to incorporate the shapes of the data in the cover and relate it to the typography.
I began experimenting with the different graph shapes that might work for the cover. The line graph was the most commonly used in my research of this data, although some featured bar graphs and other representations. When playing about with the different orientations, I felt like the lines were the the ones I wanted to use.
I felt pretty strongly about representing real data on the cover, as much as the inside uses facts and figures. I took the shapes of the lines from real data on the rising levels of CO2, sea-levels and global temperature.
After I had sketched out these graphs, I looked at the different ways the type could interact with them.
I tried creating some lettering that might work alongside the graph data lines as well. I initially thought it would be good to create letters that looked like the ocean current visualisations. I used an old paintbrush and ink to get the line effect I wanted. I was happy with the end result, but thought overall it seemed too playful to suit the cover of this book.Â
I also looked at using charcoal and paint to create some more textured letters. I liked this but felt with the rigidity and clean lines of the data I wanted to represent, it felt disjointed. Taking a look at the style I wanted to emulate, I decided it might be better to use a sans-serif typeface.
After playing with the different ways of layering the line graphs, I took the patterns into illustrator and starting working with the selected type face. I enjoyed playing about with the blending tool in illustrator to create something visually impactful, but I felt it took away from my original concept, and although interesting to look at, it was hard to interpret what was happening. I decided as well that instead of creating shape with the title itself, which I wanted to be bold and clear - I used quotes from the book relating to the data to represent.Â
For the background, I tried a variety of different textures. I thought a ground texture might work to loop it back to this idea of âEarthâ but similarly to the charcoal, it didnât feel like it connected as well. I instead went back to the graph paper I used originally. I soaked it in water to make the grid lines bleed a little, to give just a hint of the chaotic events suggested in the book.
My final piece was something I was really proud of. I wanted to create something that didnât directly link to climate change events itself, but much like the book alluded to the overwhelming data that alerts us to a need for intervention. The type I choose was the sans-serif Bhanschrift which, although dark and bold, was written in lowercase. I felt that this was better than all uppercase because the book does not feel like it is shouting âThis is your fault!â so much as it is stating matter of factly âWe need to do somethingâ - clear and concise. I paired this with the âLetter Gothic Standardâ. The style seemed to go well with the data theme, having a slight monospace feel as well as looking like traditional typewriter font.Â
By using the quote from the book to sit along the lines of information from NASAâs website, I felt I was able to create something visually intriguing, representative of the book, as well as snippet of whatâs inside. Using the background of gridlines keeps in theme, but by adding subtle hints of colour and bleeding to the ink, kept the imagery from looking flat, and also linked to the colour palette of other data visualisations.
I think although I choose to do with a font, I would have been interested to find a lettering style that suited the cover. The way the lines of data are drawn may have allowed for a hand written type, although having them different creates a contrast.
