Environmental Futures

The brief: a new series of books tackling head-on the enduring and emerging environmental questions that will determine the survival and prosperity of our planet. In response to a provocative title question, each book will critically examine a central environmental challenge facing us today. The series was to offer serious but accessible books by some of the world’s leading environmental thinkers, aimed at both students and general readers. The series was to be distributed globally and priced competitively for a trade readership. Cover design should be visually bright, eye-catching and nothing too cluttered or dull and dreary. Typography should have centre-stage on the covers since it is extremely important that the titles and author names are clear for potential customers. With sales through online retailers increasing designers should consider how customers are buying books and often that means they are scrolling through thumbnails on on-line stores. If covers are not legible and eye-catching they’re simply passed over.

Solution: Bold, bright, simple and clean. Text with high readability and strong contrast of three colours: two fixed colours — yellow and black (usually associated to danger in the natural world) and a very lively, at times strident, variable colour along with an iconic illustration. The cover designs were inspired by road or social alert signage, designed to be understood by all. All cover copy in affirmative type, with the message in bold capital letters. The covers were designed with poster like quality, which immediately capture the buyer’s/reader’s attention;

Polity is a leading international publisher in the social sciences and humanities fields, with offices in Cambridge and Oxford in the UK and Boston in the US.

Client

Polity Books

Year

2017

Design

Ana Boavida