Background:​ I will admit, I have not read Dune. BUT I am curious about it.(Outerspace? Sandworms?) When I was assigned to design a book cover, the new movie trailer for Dune had just been released. I knew it was based on a Sci-Fi epic and wanted to see if I could take a genre that I'm not familiar with at all and make a pretty, striking book cover that would convince others like me to pick it up and give it a try. Even more exciting was my desire to expand upon the book design and imagine merchandise expressions that fans would be excited to own. 

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Design Problem: As mentioned, the biggest problem was that I hadn't read the book. I needed to quickly discern the key visual elements and get a baseline understanding of how to best summarize this work of literature visually. 

 

Design Process:​ Once I understood the basic story, I got to work researching previous editions of the book to see what the design strategy for the franchise had been up until this point. Because I knew I would apply my design beyond just a book cover, I also looked into other franchise merchandise to see what the possibilities could be there. 

 

Design Solution: ​Science fiction stories can be very detailed and specific. For this reason, I decided to design simply. At its core, Dune is about a desert planet that's covered in sand. Therefore, I played around with layering sand to create texture. I added a horizon line to give the cover some dimension and make it seem like the sand went on as far as the eye could see. To break things up, I chose to implement bright blue and crisp white.  And finally, as a nod to the decades the franchise was written in (60's and 70's), I used a funkier, statement font paired back to Futura. Overall, I wanted to achieve a future/past look that translated beyond just a book cover. Below you'll see some examples of this design applied to merchandise. 

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Software: Photoshop

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