Metamorphosis

Our project was to re-design the novel by Franz Kafka, 'Metamorphosis,' originally published in 1915 in German.

The re-designed book was to have three separate parts, Metamorphosis I, II and III. To express the different stages of Gregor Samsa's morphing experience, I implemented different typefaces and layouts for all three parts such as early 15th Century typography for Part I, the the International Tyographic Style for Part II, and postmodern graphic design for Part III.

This was a fun project, especially for Part II and III where I could go wild in my ideas to replicate a playful yet structured modernist or destructive yet aesthetic post-modernist style. For some spoiler pages in Part III, you'll notice I used real materials to create the type, such as cling wrap, ripped tissue paper and sand to convey some of the more choking, intense or heartbreaking quotes from the story.

Overall, as the book's typographic design goes from stable and undeviating in Part I to chaotic and tumultous by Part III, I hope for my book design to distinctly stimulate for the reader the emotions and experiences of Gregor's tragic story.

You can read it as a flipbook below, or skim over its overall design in the images under it.