The assignment was to develop a story plot and book jacket cover from a given ambiguous book title. I drew “Data Feud” from a hat. Initially, I was discouraged with my title and felt it trapped me into imagery of scatterplots, calculators, and computers. When I sat down to develop my idea web, I tested how I could push the duality of the word “data.”
Ultimately, I focused on what type of information gets transformed into data points. I wanted my story to have some element of humanity, so I thought about census records, character tropes, and human behavior. I came up with the following story:
“Garret Douglas has a way with people. You know those people who can skate through life off of good looks without any talent? Well Garret lacks the first part, but his talent is reading people. After spending twenty years hunched over a computer generating algorithms to match Internet shopping ads to people’s guilty splurges, he has this ability to break people down into fragments of data. From your outfit to your mannerisms, Garret can pretty accurately assess your net worth, emotional stability, and likelihood to recycle at home. Garret doesn’t try to “get to know people” because he already knows them. As a result, Garret doesn’t have the best social life.
Algorithms are supposed to give predictable, reliable answers for any recognizable entry. But what happens when the code generates an unexpected output? The input is Charlotte.”
Instead of drawing predictable conclusions from data, I wanted a story that disrupted the safety of statistics. The “feud” became the competing instincts Garrett’s formula to people and Charlotte’s unpredictability.
I did explore a couple of other concepts (a killer robot apocalypse and an erasure of all types of data identity), which is reflected in some of my sketches, but I developed my cover concept pretty early on.
My friend Chantal modeled for me. I asked her to dress eclectically with accessories that couldn’t be defined as a particular style. I lit the set with a homemade pink gel on top of a bright light. I wanted Charlotte to come across as electric and sensuous. I needed her friendliness and warmth to be immediately apparent.
After printing and shredding my favorite photo, I experimented with sliding the picture against the scanner flatbed at different speeds to achieve a color glitch. I made 17 different versions of the same picture.
I’ve always been fascinated by the complex stories encoded within numbers and code. I knew my cover needed some aspect of conflicting forces to communicate a feud, and I wanted a visual system that created a dichotomy between Garrett and Charlotte. I came up with the idea of using binary code to contrast when something is “on” (Charlotte) or “off” (Garrett). The cover spells out “Data Feud” vertically. I also came up with ways to simulate screen glitches in real life by offsetting text and pictures. I distorted images by hand by shredding pictures and reassembling them piece by piece.
The other aspect of the feud is the starkness of the plain cover against the colored, distorted image of Charlotte. Her personality peeks through the cover inviting the reader to delve beyond superficial impressions in the same way Garrett must learn to see people as more than pieces of data.
Click here to see more of my process on this book.
