Bachelor's Project to create a visual identity for a fictional publishing house and to establish the direction and aesthetic of the designs for its book collections.
The "client" is Small Editions, a publishing house for pocket-sized books that’s based in Greece and exports its products abroad.
The logo is a simple, typographic mark that can be part of the book covers without clashing with the rest of the design elements.
Three collections were created to function as sample for the company's publications; "Kafka", "The Beats" and "C.P. Cavafy".
These books feature protagonists who have been pushed aside from society and are struggling to find their place in the world. In ‘Metamorphosis’, Gregor Samsa becomes alienated by his family because of his new form, in ‘The Trial’ Joseph K. cannot receive justice because of the inaccessible system and in ‘The Castle’ K. struggles to fit in a community that does not accept him, nor reject him. The second common element of the books is the surreal character of Kafka’s worlds that these protagonists live in.
I chose to illustrate the themes by using only typography. The title and author’s name are literally “pushed-aside” towards the margins of the covers, while the distorted letters in the background reference the surreal elements of the stories.
This collection features works of the three most influential members of the Beat generation, a literary movement that started in the 1950s. They rejected the status quo of American life and wanted to find greater meaning in life through experimentation with art, drugs, spirituality, and sexuality.
The shape of the letering and the cotheroughly drawn lettering expresses the rebellious and raw character of the Beat Generation. The and their work is expressed in the choice of roughly drawn lettering on top of tand shapes on top of photographs that portray young people from their era.
Creating this collection was prompted by the opening of the Cavafy archive to the public by the Onassis Foundation. This archive contains digitized pages of all his papers and notebooks, including personal letters, various notes but also unfinished poems which are included in this collection. For these covers, I created a collage of elements that resemble scraps from personal notebooks and diaries.
To better define the brand's visuals, a business card, a few bags and some packaging were designed.
