Spring 2024
As part of my training course for Creativity and Concept Development, I developed the objective to design a book that narrates the poem The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe and artistically portrays the story’s themes of melancholy and grief using free play typographic elements so that anyone reading and studying the poem can understand and visualize the narrative.
Process (Sketching & Design)
Before I started the project, I created a brief storyboard of the sequence of events of the poem I wanted to include. This book would be an abridged version of the poem, so I wanted to think about what events from the story would be most important to illustrate.
I used a variety letter stencils to create the script of the poem, which I took pictures of to edit in Photoshop and use Illustrator's image trace feature to turn them into vectors.
I sketched the illustrations on paper and pencil and also brought them into Photoshop and Illustrator for editing. I then added and arranged my vector letters according to a grid system I created.
I wanted to add additional illustrations on the spreads that complement the main page. I kept my sketches for these looser but used a similar design process as the larger illustrations.
Final Product
Use the Arrows to Navigate Spreads
I also designed a poster for a poetry reading event at a local library that this project can help promote. An event like this can be a good opportunity to demonstrate this product in action - helping anyone reading the poem understand and visualize the narrative.
