Fahrenheit 451 - Book Covers
In order to celebrate the most influential books of all times, three book covers were designed for the same book. Thus, I designed three covers for the novel "Fahrenheit 451", by Ray Bradbury. The only text included in the cover was the title of the novel and the name of the author. The covers consist of:
- Typographical book cover, highlighting mostly the type
- Handmade (physical elements) book cover, building it with my own hands
- My own choice book cover, using any of the Adobe products
To design these covers I used colored paper and scissors, as well as Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator.
Summary of Fahrenheith 451:
Society understood that books were meant to be burn instead of read. Firemen had the job of starting fires. If people were found possessing any books, they were burned in their houses together with their books. Guy Montag enjoyed his job as a fireman, until he met a professor along the way that awoke him to a future where people could think on their own. Nor the media nor the government had power over him anymore, since he found he could obtain knowledge on his own. This story is about censorship, control, and the freedom we can enjoy when we obtain knowledge on our own. Nonetheless, freedom of thought comes with risks and high costs.
Typographical book cover: I used Adobe Illustrator to create this simple cover. I tried to use only a basic shape and simple colors to highlight the type. Each element is aligned with each other. The combination of background texture and the all seeing eye surrounded by flames creates the sensation of burning. 451 has a charcoal texture. The "i" in Fahrenheit is made of a burned match.
Handmade book cover: Since in the story books are burned, I thought apropiate to use paper. Hence, I used lines of paper to represent flames burning a person without identity. I added contrasting text using Adobe Photoshop.
My own choice book cover: Using Adobe Illustrator, I applied a charcoal background representing ashes. The CCTV camera shows the constant surveillance that the people in the story experienced. The person with paper head symbolizes the knowledge from books that is censored. The name or the book has a burning effect created by strokes that closes the main message of the book, where books and knowledge were burned and censored.
