The performance of constituent elements in book cover design

Book cover designs have been neglected for a long time. However, with the improvement of social civilization and the rapid development of economy, the emergence of computer digital technology, especially the untiring efforts of book design designers, has continuously improved the aesthetic function and cultural quality of book cover design, and gradually formed a kind of Book aesthetic culture. It has become the need of the times to theoretically study and sort out the aesthetic laws of book design and develop advanced design concepts with national characteristics.

In book cover designs, dots, lines, faces, and colors become the most basic four elements of a design language. Designers, like musicians, are good at using "basic notes" to compose beautiful movements, and they must be as good as the director in scheduling dramatic performances of major characters. How to combine the four basic elements of point, line, face, and color, and how to display their individuality in the whole, has become the wisdom highlights and creative inspiration of the designers.

The cover design is essentially a combination of points, lines, faces, and colors. Like the Rubik's cube, with the changes in the organizational structure, it is possible to create ever-changing cover designs. Points, lines, faces, colors, have their own different forms, personality. The use of these four language elements must follow the basic laws of formal beauty.

<br> <br> point of view in terms of design, the point is the basis of all natural form. Points are only relative to one another and have no size. The point is the beginning and end of the line and it is also the intersection of the two lines.

Clever use of points can create distinctive effects in the cover design. When people concentrate their sights on the plane of the point, this point will have the feeling of expansion and the radiating power to the surroundings. Book framing designers often use this tension in the design of the cover to make the title of the book appeal to readers with a purely contrasting radioactive tension. At the same time, the points are also cohesive and have a visually concentrated feeling. Pointing through a regular arrangement can also produce a sense of line.

In a plane, when the points with equal intervals are set on a line or curve that does not actually exist, the ordered arrangement of points will produce a line feeling. Designers make use of this psychological reflection. In the cover design, with each word as a point, many words are regularly equidistantly arranged, and a wide or thin dashed effect will appear. This kind of dotted effect often appears in the subtitle of the cover. Design of English titles, publishers, and abstracts. The "dotted line" of different thicknesses eliminates the sense of dissociation in the reader's mind and strengthens the coherence between each "point". Due to different font sizes such as subtitles and English titles, the strengths and weaknesses of the formed lines are different, resulting in changes in the layout and a sense of rhythm. This has played a role in simply seeking change, reversing changes, and retrieving simplicity.

<br> <br> line in the design of the book cover, the cover itself is surrounding four straight. Generally speaking, the straight lines are static and rigid. How to create an artistic life on the square plane formed by the four rigid lines, not only to have a deep understanding of the point, but also to make the line an indispensable component in the design. Elements must also have a deep understanding.

The line plays a very important role in the book cover design. Lines have a stronger emotional personality than points. Lines come in two forms: straight lines and curves. Each kind of line can be divided into many kinds of forms, such as thick straight lines, thin lines, saw-like lines, regular curves, free curves, and so on. Lines have different directions, such as vertical lines, horizontal lines, and oblique lines. In addition, the line can also show strength and speed. Because the designer chooses different tools and materials for paper, pen, etc. according to the needs of the creative during the cover design process, a variety of lines with different effects will be produced.

In the cover design, the line is used as the main language. It is necessary to understand the characteristics of different lines. At the same time, they should also master the rules of formal beauty and design according to the rules of formal beauty. Focus on the expressiveness of the line, the density of lines, the dynamics of the line, and the rhythm and rhythm of the line so that the line can be greatly played and created in the cover design.

<br> <br> nature plane surface has the shape is varied. Such as square, rectangle, diamond, fan, circle, ellipse, free curve, irregular shape and so on.

Face is an important factor in the cover design. Different kinds of faces have different personality characteristics, and the effects formed in the cover design are also different. If the surface is not treated by formal rules, it sometimes appears sloppy, disorderly, and complicated.

In the book cover design, any element may appear in the form of a face, or text, or graphics, or color blocks. We can think of the book cover as a rectangle. If we draw a circle at the top of the cover, the name of the book and the author will be divided into two long squares. From the overall design of the book cover, take full advantage of the different state of the face. The circular shape and the two rectangles formed by the words form a circle contrast, resulting in a strong visual impact. The structural design of different forms not only enriches the form of books, but also enables readers to understand more about one way of reading in reading.

In the cover design, the various forms of the face and the organic arrangement of the contrasting relationship will produce an overall, concise, atmospheric, and artistic sense of space. In the design of the book cover, if the face is properly dealt with, not only will not be dull but will produce a strong overall contrasting beauty.

Colors vary from person <br> <br> awareness and sensitivity to color, but Kandinsky said: "people of color on this organism can produce a huge role, and directly affects the spirit," which is not Doubt facts. Psychological experiments show that different colors have different emotions and make people associate. It is the color that affects people's psychology and can mobilize and inspire people's emotions, causing a spiritual resonance, so that it has a strong and fascinating charm in the book cover art design.

In book cover design, especially in color design, the structure and combination of multiple colors, such as contrast color, complementary color, inter-color, multi-color, and gray color, are only when a variety of colors have reached a harmonious and unified relationship. The United States can also convey the designer's unique design intent through the color language of the United States. The special structure of different colors, such as different musical notes, forms a touching melody, as if the special structure of words constitutes a beautiful poem. The structure of color is the key, the structure of color is ingenious, the structure of color comes from unique ideas, and the unique and novel color structure can turn ordinary into magic.

The use of color in book cover design, designers usually have a comprehensive and full understanding of the content, form and style of the book, and then design the book cover according to their overall creativity.

In the contemporary days of computers participating in the cover of books in digital languages, the means of design have become richer and the design style has become increasingly diverse. In the context of globalization, we must make full use of ethnic cultural resources and national cultural symbols, actively absorb the advanced design ideas, concepts, and techniques of the international community and create design concepts and artistic styles that can represent national culture.

Xia Xiaoqi Lecturer, School of Design Art, Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication

Source: "Decoration"