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. 

A Book Cover Design that I like

A book cover design that I really enjoy:

Night by Elie Wiesel

I came across Night in my junior year when I took positive psychology. The book is about the author's experience at the Nazi concentration camps toward the end of the WWII, so it is not a popular reading for classes like positive psychology. Yet, the book stands out to me because despite its thin volume, Night is by no means easy to read. I almost gave up reading towards the end of the story because I felt so overwhelmed by the horror, grief and helplessness that Jewish people experienced during WWII. From a first-person perspective, the book revealed how terrifying and powerful the concentration camps were in terms of destroying people's faith, hope, and most importantly, humanity. However, from my point of view, the true legacy of the book is that it evokes readers to reflect on what human beings are capable of doing and how to prevent tragedies like this from happening again in the future. Night is a constant reminder that brings that part of history into our awareness and warns us to make sure that the past doesn't repeat itself. 

The book cover is the 1982 Bantam edition and it hovers in my mind since I first laid eyes on it. Although I haven't had any formal training in book cover design, I'm still impressed how well the graphic tree branches that mimic the shape of mental fences and the space between each letter that creates a sense of tension complement the content. The cover is the first thing that will pop up in my mind when I think of the book, which probably speaks quite well for itself how powerful and successful the design is.