Science + Art Book Cover

The last project for my Intro to Graphic Design class was for a book cover of a book of our choosing, but not existing. I decided to combine Science and Art as they are two fields that I find interesting--especially their intersections. I actually found it difficult not to fall back on my 'science-self' as I was preparing my Target Audience Survey (TA, where we pin point the client, price, and distribution/feel of a piece of merchandise) to not get wrapped up in the research aspect of the assignment. I had to keep telling myself, "you're not writing this paper, you're designing a cover for the paper. You don't need to know this much about the subject." But I couldn't help myself.

The book is based on an article in Seeds magazine (an awesome publication that combines science and design) titled "The Future of Science is Art" by Jonah Lehrer. I also put my own spin on it an expanded it not only to the intersections of science and art in the future, but also by including examples of the two "opposite" fields intersecting with examples from this NPR page and others.

Here are some preliminary cover designs after we spent a week exploring type faces.
This one felt too sterile and textbook like.


This one looked like a textbook with the two bars on the top and bottom but I liked that the painting is on the slide as if it appeared in science.


This one would be a square format book. We decided that it was too science-focused and needed more of the art side. Apart from adding a French Barrett (spelling?) hat, more artistic tools in her pocket were needed at least.

This was my bow to Science magazine. The image is from this great site for GE's In Cell Photography competition.

Finally, was this idea of this split man (which was actually the first idea). I have posted three versions I am working with. I am having trouble deciding on three areas. 1. Title: Science/Art or The Future of Science...is Art? 2. The spine title 3. The back cover....is it easy enough to read? too much text?


This example has a more descriptive paragraph about the book on the back.


While this cover has a quotation from Lehrer's article on the bottom.

Let me know what you think!