The Enigma
Dust jacket
Digital Illustration
Print Design
The Brief
Create a dust jacket design by integrating hand-printed wood-type patterns into a refined digital composition. Maintain cohesiveness between two forms of media to achieve a visually unified and engaging final piece.
The Solution
Designed a mysterious dust jacket for The Enigma, a fictitious book by Edgar Allan Poe, blending hand-printed wood type patterns with digital enhancements. The final design captures the eerie essence of Poe’s work, appealing to readers drawn to dark, literary intrigue.
Design Details
It all started with hand-inking wood type to create prints, where I played around with overlapping letters, repetition, and negative space to craft some pretty intricate typographic patterns. The little imperfections and textures that came from the printing process gave everything an organic feel, which was a big part of what made the final design work.
The final pattern came out as a mixture of question marks and, in a way, an octopus, which is meant to keep people guessing. In my research for an author that matched the tone I was going for, Edgar Allan Poe felt like the perfect fit. His eerie, layered storytelling style aligned with the kind of mystery and tension I wanted the design to hold. The pattern plays into that almost like a visual riddle, designed to catch the eye and leave people wondering, much like the lingering unease in Poe’s work.
