BEHIND THE BOOK COVER DESIGN FOR RAY BRADBURY’S CENTENNIAL
Minotauro commissioned Coverkitchen to design a series of dust jackets and hardback book covers for special editions of Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451, to mark what would have been Ray Bradbury’s 100th birthday. Alongside the cover designs, the project scope also included the endpapers and a centennial logo.
As Fahrenheit 451 is derived from Usher II, one of the short stories in Martian Chronicles, our cover cooks decided that both should share the same design concept. In Usher II, William Stendahl is a book lover exiled to Mars after the government on Earth outlawed books and ‘firemen’ burn any that are found. To build a commemorative identity, our cooks extracted elements present in both books: smoke, fire, sand and ashes, and put both their hearts and creative minds into designs for one of our most beloved authors.
“When you’re seventeen you know everything. When you’re twenty-seven if you still know everything you’re still seventeen.”
― Ray Bradbury
Concept #1: Smoke & Fire
A rocket flies off the cover of Martian Chronicles, while a smoke plume rises up from the edge of Fahrenheit 451. While a rocket is not visible on either book cover, we envision them in our imagination. Since fire causes smoke, both covers are formally and conceptually interwoven. Our cover cooks also proposed the placement of Ray Bradbury’s name on the spine only, along with the centenary logo. This was the editor’s preferred concept, but was unfortunately discarded to reach mainstream distribution in Central and South America.
Concept #2: Sand & Ashes
A burning image has been used on numerous covers for Fahrenheit 451. To continue with this theme and create a visually interesting design, our cover cooks proposed an image of burning paper alongside a circular cut out on a slipcase, where the title and centenary logo would be printed as a foil stamp on the hardcover.
The second proposal under the Sand & Ashes concept used the same ingredients as above, but in a more literal way: burning and burying two old books in sand. Our cover cooks took photos of the aftermath and added the titles digitally. While this approach would have suited the ‘Minotauro Esenciales’, the editor leaned towards a more conceptual design, much like the burning image and circular cut out featured in the previous proposal.
Concept #3: Interactive Slipcase
While the brief did not suggest any packaging design, our cover cooks took a chance with an illustrated slipcase proposal to encase both Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451. In this proposal, the slipcase features a rocket gliding through the galaxy on one side and five unlit matches on the other. As one removes Martian Chronicles, the rocket is ‘launched’ towards Mars, taking off from the slipcase and leaving a gust of smoke in its wake. When Fahrenheit 451 is removed from the slipcase, a match is lit and a fire is ignited, ‘burning’ the book in the process. For both book covers, it is the reader who ignites the processes by endeavoring to read them.
