Book Cover Design for Borges 'Library of Babel"

What this book is about?

Library of Babel by Borges describes a universe in the form of a library that consists of countless hexagon galleries and indefinite numbers of books. The first image that stood out to me while reading the story is well-defined geometric forms arranged in a chaotic and incoherent manner. The massive universe is composed endless hexagons so that each gallery is just a tiny little piece of its millions of duplicates. Men living in the library have concluded that since it contains all possible combinations of the 22 orthographic symbols, there must be a book somewhere that is the perfect catalog of the content of the library. Hundreds of people have attempted to travel through the library to seek the book, and as the library is infinite, despair and depression have emerged. I'm impressed to see how massiveness would become an obsession, and more importantly, a distraction that discourages people to live their own life. The despair of knowing that anything that we can possibly create in the future already exists can be so overwhelming that it pulls men in the library from focusing on what they are capable of and pushes them onto a pointless journey for the rest of their life.

My book cover design process

• 7.15 Summarizing the plot, images and philosophical implications in the book, brainstorming & sketching.

Group discussion summarizing the book

Trying out different concepts on sketchbook: pixel guy, hexagon glasses, books

Trying out different concepts on sketchbook: geometry, alphabet, etc.

• 7.16 Deciding on the graphic and concept & making 3 iterations of the design. I decided to play around with the alphabet and tried to depict my feelings after reading the book. 

4.25 * 6.87 in. 

6 * 8 in.

6 * 8 in.

• 7.17 Final version
  

  

  4.25 * 6.87 in.