Behind the Design
My design for this book is representative of both the story of Tara’s life and the story of her education; because, while both are very different narratives, one cannot exist without the other.
The mountains not only symbolize where she is from, but also the obstacles she encountered on her journey towards an education. The collage effect was inspired by Tara’s rough and unique upbringing, and it is intended to mirror her unconventional and powerful story.
The entire piece is meant to create a balance between her two stories, to unify them as a whole and create harmony between them, just as Tara has done in her own life.
The Early Stages
Because mountains seemed too obvious a choice for the subject matter, I needed to maintain an element of intrigue and uniqueness within the design. I opted to collage my design as opposed to illustrating or photographing it.
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The pieces included in my design are as follows:​
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Red paper found in a Saatchi Art catalog
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Grey envelope paper
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Sample art from a studio class
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Graph paper
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Torn up and altered image of a road and mountains found in a Life magazine
The Assemblage
The decision to collage my design came from many failed attempts at illustrating it on the computer. Every illustration came out too clean and seemed disconnected from the story I was trying to portray. The collage was a new and different approach for me which mirrored Tara's unconventional story perfectly.
The rough textures of the collage create a powerful image, and the hand-made aspect creates a more personal feel to the cover art.
The Heavy Edits
Once the collage was assembled and scanned into my computer, I continued to alter it's appearance to better fit my concept for the project.
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The changes I made are as follows:​
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I added some art to the lower right mountain to break up the solid color and add texture.
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Tore the bottom right corner of the foreground and added graph paper behind it to make it more visually interesting.
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Wrote down algebra on the graph paper in the background to reference how Tara taught herself algebra.
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Changed the color of the piece to yellow. Yellow resembles the color of a pencil but also maintains an earthy feel to it. It also represents opportunity and is meant to energize and inspire which pairs well with the book's inspiring message.
The Final Design
After finishing up the heavy edits, all that was left was to add the text. I opted for Didot bold for everything, it's clean serif is reminiscent of academia and seemed fitting for the design.
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Overall, the cover is simple yet maintains the meaning behind Tara's story.