The Sun Also Rises - Book Cover Design (ART205)

Here's a recent project I worked on for Typography class with Sharon Conlee as the instructor. I chose Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. I haven’t read the book, but I’m familiar with his work. I like how short the title is, and how short the words are within it; I thought this would help out the design. I did some quick skimming and read a full book summary at Sparknotes.com. Having some idea as to what the book entails would no doubt drive my design.

I looked at a lot of full layout book covers online to see what kind of basic elements are involved. I also looked at other designs of the same cover. Most of these designs involved bullfighting and some sort of shadow to emphasize the “sun” part of the title. I know I wanted the title to take up most of the cover, as with a lot of popular titles in stores, and to only keep Hemingway’s last name on the cover.

I found a sun illustration on Sxc.hu (free royalty-free images) and also a photo of a bullfighter and bull. I liked the color scheme of the sun photo and decided to use that as a basis for the rest of the spread. Using the bullfight photo with lowered opacity as my extra texture I added a little more interest to the sun. The other design elements I used were an author photo, some basic shapes using a dark orange rectangle with lowered opacity, and finally the UPC and original publisher’s logo. I added an illustration of Hemingway’s signature on the back flap.

I used Futura as my title font; it’s bold and has a modern feel to it, which would go well with today’s bookstore. I used Georgia, in regular, bold, and italic to give hierarchy to the copy and review blurbs. Georgia was used because of its’ serifs, to contrast with the san-serif font Futura. I kerned a larger portion of the text, mostly the title and some of the copy, leading adjustments were also used to push text into a cleaner state within the rectangular design elements.

Here's the full jacket.

Gavra Lynn's Downtown Peoria Gallery

 I attended an art and music showcase at Gavra Lynn’s gallery down on Jefferson across from the Civic Center (the storefront that says "Art Show"). The gallery is a great spot to see work by local artists and hear some local musicians; from time to time Gavra has even hosted some local filmmaker’s events.

The gallery is quite large and there are paintings and sculptures all over the place. To keep the gallery running, Gavra hosts benefit events and invites musicians to play and even show their own art work. The admission fee is usually not required but is encouraged as a donation. While the crowd size varied throughout the night there were usually about fifteen people wandering about and eventually settling to hear the next music set. Overall, Gavra had invited ten bands to play over the course of seven hours and the genres involved varied from folk and progressive rock to experimental.

If you weren’t listening to music you were either chatting about the artists or grabbing a beer or some wine from the mini-kitchen. The evening was great but I only watched a handful of bands, I did not plan on attending for all seven hours. I was there to play a quick set with my band and then hang out for a bit to chat with friends. I haven’t really been to this kind of event in the past, but I have seen galleries and concerts. One series of paintings by Anthony Couri has caught my eye every time I have visited Gavra’s gallery.

Anthony has created some interesting works using merlot and cigarette ashes as his media. The red splashes of wine almost look like accidental spills and the black ash marks contrast with the white paper (or canvas) he uses. The pieces almost seem as if the fallout from a late night party has found its way on to an open sketch book sitting on a coffee table. Most of the shapes seem random and organic so it’s quite pleasing to the eye, any tension may be derived from the overall appearance of a spill or a mess needing to be cleaned up. Anthony was present at the event to play some music as well.

Unfortunately I only caught the tail end of Anthony’s music set. His band Gypsy Gypsy Gypsy is labeled “Psychedelic, Trance, Visual” and I could certainly tell this was an appropriate assignment. Anthony sat surrounded by percussion instruments ranging from a small hand drum to a rather small gong cymbal. It was a very trippy mix of shimmering chimes and gong howls all sitting nicely with an electric bass guitar drone. If you’re expecting some catchy hooks or pop lyrics, look elsewhere, this music was truly psychedelic with no discernible structure. It was a nice display of the genre and it would have been very enjoyable to anyone who is into that sort of thing.

Gavra and her gallery are a breath of fresh air for Peoria, and the community she has created is unique. It’s about time downtown Peoria has a nightlife other than a bar. I would suggest a visit to anyone who hasn’t been down there yet.