“Don’t Ditch The Latte”
CLIENT: Beth Verdekal / GENRE: Book cover
The Book
Don’t be fooled. You can enjoy the finer things in life and save the planet. We can do it so quickly, that we’ll feel the earth cool in our lifetime.
It all starts with paying attention to what is really best for you.
Look, I know this sounds like “it’s just too good to be true”. I’m not saying all of this can happen with the snap of your fingers. But what I am saying is that with four simple techniques, it’s pretty darned easy to have a global impact while you’re living it up more than you are now.
The Process
Beth Verdekal was looking for a vibrant cover embodying the ideals she was planning on relaying through her book. Her target group was the American middle class, and to reach them, she chose an everyday accessory – a cup of coffee.
The design process started with the versions above, focusing on disposable cups of coffee – well-known to everyone who has ever bought coffee to-go – and, for a change, one regular coffee cup – with the shape of earth recreated from foam. The disposable cups, however, did not go well with the ecological theme of the book – and so it was decided that using a regular one would be the better choice.
Three features stood out to the author on the initial versions, though: the script font, the Earth-shaped coffee foam, and vibrant colours. The following images were created with a landscape background to emphasize the environmental connection, which turned out to be a step in the right direction.
The final part of the design process was focused on the landscape above, with a cup of coffee perched on the edge of balcony, and the figuring out the typography and colours of the text. Blue ended up being the main colour used to darken the top and bottom of the cover, with text staying white. The result was a cover perfectly suited to the author’s needs, eye-catching and vibrant, making it impossible for her prospective readers to pass it by without noticing it.