'The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere reached record levels in 2020, hitting 417 parts per million in May. The last time CO2 levels exceeded 400 parts per million was around four million years ago, during the Pliocene era, when global temperatures were 2-4C warmer and sea levels were 10-25 metres (33-82 feet) higher than they are now.'
BBC Future - https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210108-where-we-are-on-climate-change-in-five-charts
Record Temperature
'The past decade was the hottest on record. The year 2020 was more than 1.2C hotter than the average year in the 19th Century. In Europe it was the hottest year ever, while globally 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest. The exceptionally warm temperatures triggered the largest wildfires ever recorded in the US states of California and Colorado, and the "black summer" of fires in eastern Australia.'
BBC Future - https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210108-where-we-are-on-climate-change-in-five-charts
'In June 2020, the temperature reached 38C in eastern Siberia, the hottest ever recorded within the Arctic Circle. The heatwave accelerated the melting of sea ice in the East Siberian and Laptev seas and delayed the usual Arctic freeze by almost two months. Bright white sea ice plays an important role in reflecting heat from the Sun back out into space, a bit like a reflective jacket. But the Arctic is heating twice as quickly as the rest of the world – and as less ice makes it through the warm summer months, we lose its reflective protection. In its place, large areas of open dark water absorb more heat, fueling global warming further.'
Permafrost
'Across the northern hemisphere, permafrost – the ground that remains frozen year-round for two or more years – is warming rapidly. When air temperatures reached 38C (100F) in Siberia in the summer of 2020, land temperatures in several parts of the Arctic Circle hit a record 45C (113F), accelerating the thawing of permafrost in the region.'
'Permafrost contains a huge amount of greenhouse gases, including CO2 and methane, which are released into the atmosphere as it thaws. Soils in the permafrost region, which spans around 23 million square kilometres (8.9 million square miles) across Siberia, Greenland, Canada and the Arctic, hold twice as much carbon as the atmosphere does – almost 1,600 billion tonnes. Much of that carbon is stored in the form of methane, a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming impact 84 times higher than CO2.'
'Thawing permafrost also damages existing infrastructure and destroys the livelihoods of the indigenous communities who rely on the frozen ground to move around and hunt. It is thought to have contributed to the collapse of a huge fuel tank in the Russian Arctic in May, which leaked 20,000 tonnes of diesel into a river.'
Deforestation
Since 1990 the world has lost 178 million hectares of forest (690,000 square miles) – an area the size of Libya. Over the past three decades, the rate of deforestation has slowed but experts say it isn't fast enough, given the vital role forests play in curbing global warming. In 2015-20 the annual deforestation rate was 10 million hectares (39,000 square miles, or about the size of Iceland), compared to 12 million hectares (46,000 square miles) in the previous five years.
Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia are the countries losing forest cover most rapidly. In 2020, deforestation of the Amazon rainforest surged to a 12-year high.
Contextual Research
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
The dissected form of the frog on this cover provides a visual cue to the forboding content within the book, presenting information, unravelling climate change and presenting the true danger of our reckless and wasteful habits that are causing irreversible damage to the environment. - composition on without book tmeplate - good or bad?
The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What's Possible in the Age of Warming
This shows readers how to reverse the short- and long-term effects of climate change over the next three decades. The layer/collaging of imagery and textures could create an interesting composition for The Uninhabitable Earth cover, and be an effective tool in presenting some of the key themes in the book. - composition on without book template - good or bad?
Jason Booher
Booker makes book covers as well as other things he is an art director at penguin random house.
This photo surreal style could be translated into the design of The Uninhabitable Earth cover, through the manipulation of some of imagery of detrimental aftereffect of the climate crises i.e. plastic pollution. Although the brief does say they want the cover to have a strong use of typography.
A type focused composition with a toned down aesthetic, using a simple three way colour palette. Saying this, the design is still eye catching, and the illustrative style would stand out on a book shelf.
Eye Magazine
LDF_Kitching
Great used of spacing in this type heavy composition, I will try to implement elements of this design into my interpretation of David Wallace-Wells book cover.
Initial Ideas
Presenting compositions that would fit into the specific penguin book dimensions 198mm high x 129mm wide for front over designs.
Type based
With this initial idea i've focussed on a type heavy composition. The aim of the typesetting was to fill the canvas with type, presenting a very legible cover, that when glanced at, would be eye catching and stick in the readers short-term memory with clarity of what the content of the book is.
Image based
Trying to replicate the surreal image book design in research. Here this references the climate crises through manipulated imagery (scans) of plastic. The composition keeps a simple three way colour way. The type is disjointed and set at differing scales, as to draw a connection betwen the in-balance of our relationship with the environment.
Type & Texture
Taking a more illustrative approach with the design, flat colours and bitmaps were used to add depth to this composition. Type has been transformed as to replicate the form of flowing water; with the background bitmapped pattern referencing plant cells.
Bespoke bitmap texture
Outlined imagery of pebbles
Developed Ideas
Type & Texture
Adapting the initial type & texture focussed composition into the double spread penguin book formatting. Adding fill layers and wood grain texture to make the type more legible. This composition heavily references the environment, first in th wood grain fill layer, then in the type that looks as if it were debris rippling in a stream of water, then finally in the cell like, bitmapped pattern in the background.
Type Based
While Wallace-Wells delivery is humorous at times in the book, the message is pertinently serious. With this type development, the aim was to present the abruptness of the messages behind the content of the book, through a minimal yet direct and bold cover and back cover.
Type & Shape/Form Based
With a strong focus on type and the connection between form and the rest of the composition, this design presents key themes within the book through the direct visual language on the cover. The sand timer is an obvious visual cue to the decreasing amount of time we can to change the course of our climate crises, with the title of the book falling through the sand timer.
Sand Timer Form
Sand timer form/shape made from distorting/manipulating the '8' from the same tyoeface used on the developed and final outcomes.
Final Idea
Three variations of the final book cover. The design revolves around an illustrative block aesthetic, with bitmapped textures woven in. The block colour style works well with type, making it very legible and impactful; and with this illustrative style being more common among Penguin books I feel this is the best representation of David Wallace-Wells climate crises book, with the encompassing content of this book lending itself to this style of working.
Bespoke bitmapped texture
Made by bitmapping imagery of loose gravel this textures softens the tone of the cover, while allow the foreground content to directly address the pertinent information
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