Catch Me If You Can
In one of my classes, we were discussing how the look of objects such as book covers and dust jackets can affect whether or not people are drawn to the object in question. We were tasked with selecting a book that we enjoyed reading, and redesigning the cover in our own way, so that it better suited the content.
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To challenge myself, I selected a book that I enjoy, but also knew that it was not popular or well known as a book, in comparison to it's movie counterpart. The book that I selected was the autobiography, Catch Me If You Can, by Frank Abagnale Jr.
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Summary: This is the story of Frank Abagnale Jr. and how he managed to fly over 1,000,000 miles on over 250
flights as a Pan Am copilot, visit 26
different countries, work as a supervising pediatrician at a hospital in Georgia, graduate Harvard University, work for the attorney general’s office in Alabama, graduate Columbia University, teach a college sociology class and steal over $2.5 million through forged checks. The most surprising detail about all of this is that he managed to do it all by the time he turned 21, before finally being caught up with.
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Now recognized as the nation’s leading authority on financial foul play, Abagnale is a charming rogue whose hilarious, stranger-than-fiction international escapades, and ingenious escapes-including one from an airplane-make Catch Me If You Can an irresistible tale of deceit.
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The first step was researching the book, if you hadn't read it recently, and then finding different
variations of the published covers. We also had to find key elements of the book's content that we wanted to incorporate into the design, to include icons and colors.
When coming up with color palettes, I started off by looking at the colors used in both the various book covers, as well as drawing inspiration from the opening title sequence of the movie based off the book. Each palette represents a different persona that Frank Abagnale Jr. adopted, ranging from pediatrics to law to working for Pan Am to his decision to settle down.
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The final color palette that I chose to go with was the Pan-Am inspired palette, while incorporating a few colors from the different palettes that I had started with. The final palette consists of five solid colors and one gradient; white, black, yellow, light blue, cream (off white), and a black to white gradient.
After coming up with a final color palette and some key elements to the plot, we needed to complete ten quick sketches of a few ideas that we had. The main elements of the story that I chose to focus on were his time with Pan-Am, a few check related ideas, and a few others that relied on either his career or how he was always one step ahead.
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Once we had a few solid sketches, it was time to narrow our options down and select three ideas that we wanted to bring into the design comp stage of the project. This would include adding in our final colors as well as the final font choices that we had made, which included our decisions on whether the project would be title-driven or author-driven. I made the decision to have the design be title-driven since Frank Abagnale Jr. is not well known.
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At this point, my main design that I was working with was a combination of arrows, that symbolized how Mr. Abagnale was able to always stay one step ahead of the FBI until the end, and how he was already moving onto a new destination when the FBI was headed towards his previous location.
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The final design included a front, spine, and back layout, along with two flaps that would hold the book's summary and a short biography on the author, while the back cover was devoted to reviews.
Due to the fact that the majority of the story revolves around his time as a "Pan-Am pilot" I chose to include more elements relating to that over his other careers, like the doctor's stethoscope or a lawyer's briefcase.