Books are stationary objects, but their covers are filled with energy. They pull our eyes across the page and build momentum with layout, while the content of the cover creates the illusion of motion without ever moving an inch.
The ongoing theme as we explored the Principles of Design has come down to two primary goals: guiding the reader’s eye and emphasis. We’ve been discussing the many ways a design guides a reader along a path the designer intentionally created. What’s Earth shattering this time around?
How do viewers behave when there is no design hierarchy?
Chaos? Anarchy? Do they turn feral and climb over the counter at Barnes & Noble? Possibly. Thanks to studies and heat maps, we know their eyes and brains have a natural, almost innate process. Designers have been exploiting this and it’s what helped create the Principles of Design. These norms assume Western Culture as they are impacted by how we’re taught to read.
Common Patterns:
Z Pattern
I refer to this as the S-Curve since I personally prefer the sweep gestures instead of the mechanical. The eye enters top-left, sweeps across to top-right, cuts diagonally down to bottom-left, then travels across to bottom-right. Sound familiar? It's how you're reading this sentence, minus the diagonal. The Z shows up in layouts with room to breathe: posters, ads, and yes, book covers. If your cover has a title up top, imagery in the middle, and your name at the bottom, congratulations, you're already using it.
F Pattern
The eye scans across the top, drops down the left side, and darts across again in shorter bursts as it moves down the page. Think of it as reading with increasing impatience. This is the pattern of dense text: websites, blog posts, back-cover copy. Reading gravity (the eye's natural tendency to travel as if it were reading) is why it keeps pulling back to the left. It's also why the first sentence of your description matters more than the fifth.
Gutenberg Diagram
Imagine a page split into four quadrants by an invisible cross. The eye enters at the primary optical area (the top left where we're used to starting on a page) and travels along an axis of orientation (the natural desire to read left to right). The top-right and bottom-left are fallow areas (zones the eye tends to skip past), which is what creates the diagonal line that follows reading gravity. Gutenberg shows up in evenly distributed layouts like full-page ads and editorial spreads.
For those who read comics, these techniques are common place. Sequential artists have relied heavily on this to direct the eye through artwork and text. When the artist stumbles, it creates confusion on the page and leaves the reader asking, “Wait, did I read that out of order?” The X-Men comic below required Jim Lee to use hierarchy to guide the eye in a Z pattern, otherwise the story wouldn’t make sense.
In summary, none of these are better than the other. Each technique can be wielded by a designer for maximum impact on a design. However, I need to reiterate, these are flows if there is no design hierarchy. Designers have the almost magical ability to defy, contradict, and push boundaries using other design principles that alter the hierarchy for the viewer. But for somebody just starting their journey in graphic design, these can be powerful building tools to keep in mind.
We’ve talked about composition, but can the same be said for the implied motion in the narrative movement? Smart question, and the answer is yes. We’ve been discussing the reader’s eye, but we can also discuss the movement of the content. This is known as a dynamic design and builds inertia as the viewer’s eyes move through the composition.
If we look at the content we can almost divide them into two categories. There are those that have a strong focal point and it is emphasized to the point where it glares at the viewer. The other are those who use the content of the cover to create energy through movement. Think of it as a runner at the starting line. If they hold that pose indefinitely, there isn’t energy. They might be beautiful and capture the eye, but you’re focused on a single station figure. Often the manchest covers appear like this, though I’d argue the grooves of chiseled muscles create energy. Once the runner takes off, we’re not only concerned with them, but where they’ve been, where they’re going, and we find ourselves on the edge of our seats. We’re caught up in the energy of motion.
Foolsilver by Meg Xuemei X captures this with the woman’s head posed at an angle. We travel along her hair, her cheeks, and ultimately to her eyes. We follow them because we have questions. If her pose doesn’t generate enough, the artist added arrows that reinforce this directional energy. In fact, it pushes against the natural flow of the eye and does it very successfully defying the patterns discussed earlier.
In Carley Fortune’s One Golden Summer, we have two trajectories for the viewer to travel. It might appear as if we’d read this top to bottom, but the color blocking has split the composition into two. We have the blue of the water and the pinks of the sky. The yellow, a complementary color is angled and repeated in the speed boat. With a slight pivot of the text’s angle, it follows the wake of the boat. We can imagine this boat in motion, cutting through the words and moving across the page.
Rejected by Jaymin Eve bridges the gap between static and dynamic. For a moment, the figures appear static. He’s standing still while she gets friendly. They’re frozen in a moment, as if it were a snapshot. However, while they appear frozen, the design is filled with movement around the figures. The books are flipping. The fire around the text is burning. There are embers surrounding our couple. Even his outstretched arms tell a narrative and we’re left wondering, what’s the next move? While they’re not in motion, they’re not at rest. These two are extremely… active.
What if the eye doesn’t move through the design or there isn’t content building energy? These are known as static designs. While they have their place in the design world, such as text heavy pages, I imagine most cover designers, character artist, or content creators would cringe at being called “static.”
Designers balk at the phrase, “It needs more pop.” We hear it often and the underlying positive interpretation is, “This design needs more energy.” The subtle negative connotation is, “This design is static.” When you’re wondering why a project isn’t jumping out at you the way you expected, the first stop should always be looking to movement, both composition and the content.
If a design feels boring, the first question should be, “Is there movement?”
Homework
We’ll break this week’s homework into two parts: composition and content. Go to your genre’s best seller page on Amazon. The composition movement will be visible on most successful designs while content movement will differ based on genre. A great genre for studying this is Paranormal and Urban Fantasy.
- Composition: At thumbnail size, how many have an obvious S-curve?
- Composition: At thumbnail size, how many guide the eye through the design using visual cues such as line, shape, or color?
- Content: What is the ratio between static covers and those with motion?
- Content: Are the characters shoulders to the camera or are they in motion? If they’re static, are there elements behind them that are in motion?