Metamorphosis

1/11

As an assignment for a Graphic Design Form class, I was tasked with creating a 20-page layout for a book. I chose "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka. This is a story about a man who mysteriously turns into a giant bug, forced to watch as his family, once completely dependent on him, learn to live without him.

To get a rough idea of the layout, I first sketched out some ideas on paper.

Then, I made a digital sketch, deciding on typeface choices, paragraph and character styles, color schemes, and the general mood of the book.

Franz Kafka is the father of the "Kafkaesque" style, which is known for being eccentric, complex, bizarre, and even nightmarish. Because of his reputation and the overall bizarreness of the story itself, I wanted my type and photo choices to reflect that.

For the typefaces, I chose a handwritten font for the body copy to contrast the brown paper background, making it look like someone was writing in a journal. For the major quotes, I chose a ransom note font to reflect the strangeness of the plot.

Along with the type choices, I chose to use bold images with bizarre details to tell the story. The color palette is faded, almost vintage to reflect the time that this story takes place, which is the 1910s. The pop of red on some pages represents major turning points in the story in which his family rejects him.