One of our Typography class requirements was to design book covers and book layouts.
I chose to create designs for the American classic, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter: A Romance.
We were tasked to create covers for three specific time periods, namely Kahapon, Ngayon, at Bukas (Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.)
One of my favorite projects last year because we had to lay out the whole book. ☺️
For this book, I recreated the 1861 Hugues Merle's depiction of Hester Prynne and her daughter Pearl. I chose this to be my work of kahapon because of the simple imagery spreading throughout the cover and block sans serif typography combination.
I used Proxima Nova with kerning +250 for the title's typeface and Minister Book for the body text.
For this one, I tried to give the Victorian design of banners and other ornamentations a modern twist; I focused on ornamenting the title itself and not surrounding it with anything else on the cover. I used Campi for titles, and Sabon Regular for body text.
The last book design of this series involves only typography. I used Archer for all typographic components, i.e. title, subheadings, and body text.
I particularly got an excerpt from the novel which mentions a facet of the relationship between The Scarlet Letter and Hester Prynne:
She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness, as vast, as intricate, and shadowy as
the untamed forest, amid the gloom of which they were now holding a colloquy that was to decide their fate.
Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods.
For years past she had looked from this estranged point of view at human institutions, and whatever priests or legislators had established; criticising all with hardly more reverence than the Indian would feel for the clerical band, the judicial robe, the pillory, the gallows, the fireside, or the church. The tendency of her fate and fortunes had been to set her free.
The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.
Shame, Despair, Solitude!
As I have read the excerpt, I thought so to warp and distort the text as the main subject of the cover to show movements of wander and exploration.
Thanks for viewing!
