Vis Comm student has his book cover design published

George said: “It felt a bit surreal until my copy of the book arrived at my door and I got to see and hold the finished piece – that was really cool. I felt incredibly lucky to have my work recognised and published.

“And it was thanks to my graphic design teacher, Leigh-Anne Bourn-Taylor, who inspired me and gave me the confidence to apply to university in the first place.”

Originally published in 1968 and developed with Stanley Kubrick’s film of the same name and published after its release, Orbit publishing approached UCA with this project in mind and hoped to raise awareness of design within publishing.

Ben Prior, a UCA alum and book designer for Orbit publishing, assisted students on the project, providing industry feedback and guidance.

After reading or listening to the book, Vis Comm students provided three book cover options, which could include a typographic approach with illustration, an atmospheric photographic approach, or a Haptic or 3D solution, with objects raised from the page.

Ben was on hand to help with the students’ idea generation, while students were required to document their research and detail their target audience.

“I worked on several different designs, one involving a monolith and one a galaxy,” explained George. “But my final design was inspired by the distinctive corridor sets in Kubrick's film; I then recreated a stylised version of this and incorporated the red eye of the film’s sentient AI computer (HAL 9000).”

Following a day of creative pitching in the studio, where students presented their cover ideas to Ben, final designs were submitted to Orbit editors who selected George’s illustration as their favourite. With additional layout and typography designed by Ben, the final paperback book was published late last year and is available to buy from all good bookshops.

To learn more about studying Visual Communication at UCA, visit the course pages.

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