Unicode 11.0 and 12.0 Cover Design Art

[Philippe Verdy via Unicode]

The problem with some recent covers is that they either
- had no meaning (not even implied), they where just marble textures.
- or where too culturally centered, showing some scripts or a specific
projection of the Earth
- I have sent a proposal something that is culturally neutral, it evokates
a chart of characters, but not using any actual glyph, and suggesting some
maps with continents/islands, but not real maps, and easily
scalable/croppable at any resolution (It should be noted that the edition
will have several volumes and that the central vertical part of the image
may be variable. as well I avoided implying an horizontal or vertical
layout, placing the grid at uneven angles (about 30 degrees so that it
scales smoothly without visible artefacts). Also the pattern used is never
repeated (all tiles are unique but share some common general aspect, as if
it was a regular structure, but still irregular shapes, never twice the
same but still aligning cleaning with a semi-regular structure). I was
inspired by the beautiful blue mosaics I saw in Portugal.

You may of course have other ideas. But characters endoded in Unicode are
now very rich (and the glyphs for representing them and combining them are
even more rich if we also add the introduction of significant colors).

And the general principle was that this was just a background texture that
should not obscure the text/titles put on top of it (so it should have low
contrasting lines, and should be mostly unicolor, and reasonably dark or
pale, still attractive (avoiding low saturation levels of grays). As
several concepts are requested for several editions, we may vary these
ideas/concepts, including on the central cover border area, where the
Unicode logos and titles in smaller fonts should also be clearly
distinctive. As well the fine prints (e.g. name of the editor, or a small
abstract text on the background side (left part of the suggested image
canvas), without necessarily having to map an uniform background panel on
it (an uniform white rectangle will be needed for getting a clear
black&white barcode, and such insert should be also not more distractive to
the titles, meaning that the titles will most probably be white if we want
to avoid the uniform background behing them, and this suggests a moderately
dark or medium-light colored texture).

Some photos may be used of course, or some assembly. but it's hard to
predict the exact placement/centering of the photo if the cover size must
be adapted to the effective size of the central border area (depending on
the number of pages of each volume and the quality/grammage of paper used
for printed pages in the book). Given the small diffusion of the book and
its price, I think that cheap paper will be used to limit production costs
and allow "printing on demand" by publishers (or directly by some online
resellers such as Amazon, if they is permitted to print books themselves
via their partner publishers in the world, to save expedition costs and
storage costs).

It is also very likely that most sales could be now for electronic editions.

Complex patterns of contrasting lines should be limited to not cover the
whole area and should still allow easy placement of large titles, at their
placement suggested by the described template, and should avoid touching
the central vertical area (border cover) as well as some places needed for
usual small prints.


2018-03-12 15:30 GMT+01:00 Andre Schappo via Unicode <unicode at unicode.org>:

>
> One of my project students has an art gallery as a client ➜
> surfacegallery.org This gallery is also a focal point for a collective of
> local artists.
>
> This morning I had a project meeting with this student. I suggested that
> surface gallery artists might like to submit entries.
>
> I showed the Unicode character set to the student and she was well
> impressed. I also suggested possible cover design art.
>
> The basic principle of my suggestions was that the artwork should be
> constructed from Unicode characters and only Unicode characters. My
> suggestions included: plants, animals, portraits, cityscape, zoo, farm
> ...etc... If the artists collective use my suggestions then the unicode
> cover artwork they submit will most definitely feature Unicode.
>
> Recent Unicode cover artwork has not featured Unicode (well not in any way
> that I can determine) and I think it should and it should feature it
> prominently and obviously.
>
> I do not know who or how the artwork is judged but I think it would be
> good if members of this list could vote on the submitted cover artwork.
>
> André Schappo
>
>
>
>
>
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