British book cover designer Jamie Keenan has created a gorgeous book cover for New York-based publishers WW Norton’s new translation of the classic Franz Kafka novel The Metamorphosis.
It tells the story of Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman who wakes up one day to find himself transformed into an insect, and the cover design features the book title in an old Italian typeface reworked to form the shape of the metamorphosis.
WW Norton’s art director Albert Tang had approached him with the requirement that the design had to be “something really cool, hip and (that) stands out among the numerous other copies out there.”
Keenan explained, “Generally with book covers you’re attempting to sell a story, mood, style, idea and everything else to someone who knows little or nothing about the book at all. The cover is like a corporate identity that has to convey everything about the book in a couple of seconds.” However, a classic novel presents a challenge in that it is no longer so important for a cover to convey what the book is about, and the focus shifts to using people’s knowledge of the book to give them a reason to pay attention to it.
According to the designer, he decided on the title of The Metamorphosis as the cover image, and that he want to convey “that shiny black quality that beetles have and that weirdo, fiddly, twitchy thing that a lot of creepy crawly things have.” Keenan found a scan of an old Italian typeface, and coupled with legs from a picture of a stag beetle, came up with the design.
Most of the letters had been tweaked; curlicues, which are decorative curls or twists, were moved to a different part of the letter or removed altogether, with the exception of the letter ‘S’.
The design is remarkable in how Keenan has managed to manipulate and balance the letters to create the shape of a beetle’s body, with the ‘M’ forming the head, the ‘O’ forming the thorax, and the letters ‘S’, ‘I’, and ‘S’ rounding off the abdomen.
“The secondary font is much straighter with just a hint of the Gothic about it, while being straight enough to ensure it doesn’t fight for attention. And the finished version is embossed and uses a gloss to give the beetle a bit of added shine,” said Keenan about the rest of the text.
Intriguing and visually arresting, the design provides an insight into the book while cleverly referencing the insect Samsa turns into. Most importantly, it makes you want to pick it up and read it, which is what a good book cover should do.
The Metamorphosis is published by WW Norton this month and retails at US$10.95. Head over here to pick up a copy.
The old Italian typeface Keenan used for the cover
Early version of the cover with different secondary type and less prominence to Kafka’s name
[via Creative Review, images by Jamie Keenan]