IOP Publishing Work:
Ebooks cover illustrations
Ebooks cover illustrations
A part of my role as a designer within IOP Publishing's design studio, has been the creation of cover images for the publishers ebooks program.
The design studio's strategy for the cover designs has been to communicate the subject matter through a strong cover image. A challenging prospect at times, as a STEM publisher with a physics focus, the content can be complex and particular.
IOP Publishing's design studio has curated hundreds of carefully considered ebooks covers. Below is a sample collection of my personal favourite designs have I put together for the program over the last few years.
Each ebook is created within a template system. Colour coded to a particular subject category, and with consistent rules applied for type and layout, allows for a consistent brand amongst the ebooks program, a strong identifier for the publisher's collection of books against any competitor's own collections.
(The template system was created by the design studio's previous senior designer)
(The template system was created by the design studio's previous senior designer)
A part of the design strategy for the ebooks collection, was a two style approach to the cover image. A photographic image sourced and edited from photo libraries relevant to the subject matter of the book. Or an illustrated minimalist styled image.
The studio's approach to illustrations itself takes two approaches. The primary approach is to find suitable images/figures within a books manuscript, and from there redraw and apply artistic treatment to it. This allows us to be sure the image communicates the science within the book, whilst also allowing the authors their own personal touch to the cover.
The second approach is to create an abstract illustration. This is typically used when the manuscript presents no usable imagery for inspiration. The subject matter of these books tend to be more difficult to visualise (such as the quantum sciences) as such abstract imagery works well here.
The minimalist style of the illustrations follows a core component of the IOP Publishing brand identity, minimalism being widely employed across the entire brands applications.
This illustration conceptualises safety measures when it comes to using laser technology in labs. This was based off signage often used with the machines and related workplaces.
An example of a third approach to cover illustration design, using a collage style mixing photographic images alongside illustrations, perfect for the more abstract leaning images. The image here alludes to different aspects of classical physics.
The image here is an example of taking a figure from its book, redrawn and applying artistic treatment.
(Figure caption: Contour plots of the current density (left) and of the vorticity in the nonlinear phase at t = 330tA. Superimposed to
the contours is the magnetic island.)
Another example of using figures as a source for the image cover. You'll notice that the colours used for the cover images are complementary to the cover templates subject category colour. The design here uses multiple figures from the manuscript for its source, organised into a complete image. The figures demonstrate positioning of medical machinery (discussed in the book) relative to a patient.
Another figure redraw. I love this design for its bulky 3D look contrasting alongside elegant line drawings.
(Figure caption: Two winding transformer conceptual diagram.)
My final favourite design. Again the design was sourced from a figure, but for this image I isolated one aspect of the figure and built up from there. The original source was a complex 3D diagram, in which I broke down and simplified.
(Figure caption: Construction of a biomimetic trachea using the Regenova bio-3D printer. The printer uses kenzanmethodology to arrange multicellular spheroids, consisting of chondrocytes from rib cartilage, endothelialcells, and MSCs, on a tubular needle array. Once the spheroids were fused into the tubular structure of the trachea, the construct was matured in a bioreactor perfused with medium supporting chondrocyte and endothelial cell proliferation, before being transplanted into rats to replace a short segment of resected trachea.)
