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February 4, 2009

Cover Designs




Above is my Feb. 12th VOX cover redesign. I was assigned to redesign the second cover, so to avoid the nasty poo-colored effect (below) I tried to choose a good neutral brown that is a little more appetizing. The bevel and emboss effect gives the text the feeling of actually being part of the chocolate bar, while the wrapper further emphasizes the chocolate theme. I wanted to avoid any Bon Appetit-esque stock chocolate photos, so I let the text lead the design. I like this cover because it's simple, aesthetically pleasing and easy to understand. The latter is especially important when designing a cover, because if people aren't drawn to the cover design they won't pick it up and read it in the first place. The pinkish red of the wrapper draws this kind of attention and  plays nicely off the warm tone of the brown, without being too girly or valentine-y. 




A little explanation about the cover design with the repeating hearts. I like it, and I don't think it outright says "Valentine's Day!" just because it is almost making fun of itself. By repeating the same graphic over and over again I was trying to portray what is commercially considered a symbol of "love." By replacing one of them with a similarly shaped chocolate I was trying to show that Patric's (the chocolatier) definition of love is different than most others, but demands equal respect and is of equal importance. I understand that it's definitely not the right cover for this kind of a profile, but I wanted to give it some credit because the idea behind it is more kitschy and less cheesy than the final product makes it look. (The poor photoshop job is a result of time constraints, I would never dream of publishing it as-is!)


7 comments:

Philip Prouhet said...

Chelsea,

I was originally a big fan of your first cover with the cocoa powder and the semi-transparent font. I also like the embossed cover redesign, but I am not sure what the upper right cover is supposed to be. If it is a wrapper of some sort, I think it might be a little hard to interpret. I am very impressed with taking a hard story and designing an interesting cover.

chelsea said...

Agreed with the wrapper part. I didn't realize what poor quality it was until I blew up the pdf!

Jennifer said...

Personally, I really liked your concept with the repeating hearts. I interperted it as playful and a little sarcastic (which are always good things).
I do really like your revised cover, though. It is a way of getting the chocolate theme out there, without being over-the-top.

Kristin said...

I LOVED your cover with the hearts! I also thought it was a little sarcastic and kinda making fun of the way love is commercialized on Valentine's Day. I agree it might not have been right for the story, but I thought it was a good design.

I also like that you didn't use a chocolate photo. I thought those looked a little cheesy myself. The redesign really does look like a chocolate bar and has maintained the cool type treatment from the first one. Great job!

design.by.emily said...

I love the new chocolate cover! I might sound stupid, but how did you make the font indented like that?

csolberg said...

I loved the embossed look! Great trick :)

Anonymous said...

I want to eat the chocolate cover. I think the gold foil wrapper is neat, but I didn't look at it up close. The repeating heart pattern is cute too. They all have a lot of texture which really pops out. Yumm