Black Butler Book Jacket
Black Butler, aka Kuroshitsuji, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yana Toboso. It follows Ciel Phantomhive, a 12-year-old Earl serving as the Queen's Watchdog. And had formed a contract with a demon named Sebastian Michaelis, to seek revenge in exchange for his soul. I have been tasked with redesigning the book jacket of this beloved series into a more simple but eye catching design.
Overall Message
I wish to convey the sense of mystery, darkness, and supernatural themes to my readers, to make them feel more connected and feel more intrigued.
Target Audience
Both genders, mainly females, ranging from 15-20+ in age. Comes from a middle class family and lives in urban to suburban areas. All occupations but preferably part time jobs and hobbies such as reading, drawing, and watches anime. Loves bishies, ships, action, and mystery.
Moodboards
I made three different moodboards, each displaying different styles and feelings for the book cover. The first moodboard on the top is a dark and gothic style with a dark, mysterious, and tragic feeling. The second moodboard on the bottom left is a more simple style with a sorrowful but hopeful feeling. And the last moodboard on the bottom right is a Victorian and beautiful style with a calm and quiet feeling. With the help of feedback, I decided to combine both the top and bottom right moodboards to help with the design process.
Symbol Research
Before beginning the sketches, I began to look for some symbols within the manga that I felt were very important. I used this document to list at least ten symbols I found and do some quick digital sketches of the symbols. And wrote a quick description on what the symbol represent from story context, characters, and how they are viewed in real life. The purpose of these symbols are to help with the covers designs since we need to incorporate them into the design.
Cover Sketches
Using the symbol research and the moodboards, I began sketching out the possible cover sketches for the book jacket. I made a total of ten cover sketches, some having the symbols I found and some having the main characters on it. In the sketches with the symbols, I combine two symbols together to follow a gentle yet mysterious feelings and dark and beautiful style that the moodboards showcased. The symbols are the butterfly, rose, the tea cup, and the seal. While for the sketches with one symbol or none, I used the two main characters from the manga and drew them in my style or an outline of them.
Jacket Sketches
Using the cover sketches #1, 2, 6, and 9, I created total of 20 possible jacket sketches. I combined some of the elements from each of the chosen cover sketches with each other for some new designs for the front and used those designs to help come up with the back’s designs. Or, took one of the symbols and placed in the back by themselves. And for each sketch, I drew some lines to indicated the placement of the description, bar code, and publisher images on the back. I wanted the text to be readable for the viewer to see while not overlapping the back’s design too much so most of the back can be seen. While I was doing that, I was also playing around with the title placement since the title is very important and I needed to make sure it can be seen.
Option #1
I began turning three sketches into digital drafts with the feedback I had gotten. For Option #1, I went with jacket sketch #11. I first measured the book so I could set up the file with the right measurements and make sure the design elements will fit and made the background dark blue with the flaps being white. For the front design, I drew the seal in the background with the rose overlapping and a single petal falling. For the back, I copy pasted the rose and placed a butterfly on top of it, while placing a transparent dark grey rectangle on top of the design for the description and a white rectangle with the bar code and publisher photos. For the types, I used a decorative font for the title, author, and description. While for the information on the flaps, I used a serif font while also including a photo of the author.
Option #2
In this jacket design, I used sketch #8, along with jacket measurement, and drew the cup and the butterfly in the middle of the jacket to look like it’s running off the sides with one rose on the upper corners. I used a gradient of greys for the background and navy blue for the flaps so the white type would be easy to read. I took the rectangles along with the images and bar code from option #1 and put them on the back. For the type, I used a two different serifs for the title, author, description, and information.
Option #3
In this design, I used sketch #6 and the jacket measurements from option #1. I made the background a gradient of shades of purple while for the flaps a dark gray. For the front design, I drew a butterfly sitting on a tilted tea cup and plate with a glowing effect. While for the back design, I copy/pasted the butterfly with the glowing effect and did a layering effect while shrinking their sizes like they’re getting farer. And just like options #1 and 2, I added the rectangles, images, and bar code to the design. For the fonts, I used a serif for the title, author, and description and for the flaps are a decorative font.
Jacket Drafts
With feedback given on the three options, I began to make edits to options #1 and #3 since they were the strongest. On both designs, I added the title and author on the spine in the same font. For the first draft on the top, I changed the back design from the rose with the butterfly to rose petals falling to match with the front design. And I changed the font for the information on the flaps and the description on the transparent rectangle to a more readable serif and increasing the text size a bit. As for the second design at the bottom, I changed the font on the flaps to a sans serif as the decorative font was too hard to read. And I got rid of the two smaller butterflies on the back and moved one of the butterflies down a bit.
Final
In the final design, I first added some brown into the cup to make it look like it’s tea pouring out and shrunk the big butterfly on the back a bit. I increased the opacity of the rectangle that that the description and changed the color to black. As for the white rectangle, I made it smaller so only the bar code and prices would be on it while changing the publisher logos to white text and transparent. On the flaps, I added a small butterfly at the bottom. Then moved the titles down a bit since they were close to the edge and got rid of the black lines that were present. I changed the fonts to a bold for the title and the author names, while changing the information type to a smaller size and got rid of most of the hyphens. On the spine, I aligned the text to be on the same line and added one of the publisher logo at the bottom.