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Invited readers to the author's world in A Long Way Home - using graphics, while offered related information neatly using grid and typographical elements.
Passion Project
Book Jacket Design
A Long Way Home is a memoir of Saroo Brierley, who went lost at the age of 5 age in India, was adopted to Australia, then find his way back home around 25 years later. To design this book jacket, I choose to focus on the author's impression/feeling and his inner journey to discover his roots.
I watched the adapted movie and book reviews to understand the story and the feeling it evoked quickly. I used mindmap and layout sketches to brainstorm possible visual representations for this story. Four concepts were presented for critiques with the same color palette of blue and orange, for they represent the author's journey through the ocean and land, signal his nostalgia, the hope he carried on his way home.
Concept 04 was most preferred during audience test because it expresses "A long way home" as an inner challenge of the author. The layers of doorways created a visual effect that captured the audience's attention.
Some feedbacks for improvement include the lack of warmth, the off-center placement of the primary visual element, and the quote placement. So, I continued to work on iterations to find the most balancing layout and improve the centered image. Some childhood memories like the train, the kite were placed in between to increase the depth, also represents pieces of memory that the author had.
In the final solution, every element in the front cover was balanced and centered, to make the child figure the focal point. The sans-serif typeface was chosen for the title (top) and selling point (bottom) to create a strong foundation wrap around the uncertainty in the middle. Other content was set in the serif typeface for a personal connection between the author and the readers. The title had an inner shadow effect to enhance the visual consistency with the layers of doors. On the back cover, information that encouraged the buying decision was organized in blocks parallel with the spine. The two slaps each have one human figure, represents the author and his inner boy, separated by a long story in between.
