Breathe Again is a narrative poetry collection that tells the story of one romantic relationship over time.
The beach is the strongest recurring motif throughout the story, and is almost inseparable from the evocations of the title and narrative themes of the story, which is why I felt it imperative to depict it here. Something about the vastness and the openness of the ocean already gives one the sense of being able to take a long, uninhibited breath. I wanted the cover to give that same sense.
To this end, I kept things simple and wanted to leave a lot of open space in the design -- a lot of breathing room, if you will. I depicted the ocean in motion, in the middle of its endless ebb and flow, similar to the continuous coming and going of a person's breath.
I am just now beginning to wonder if I am, in fact, one of those designers who only uses, like, three fonts and three colours. I chose DIN Condensed, as I have so many times, for its simplicity and its strength. But, I also tried to do something more thematic with the text here as well. I tried to keep it subtle, but I widened the kerning just slightly between the first three letters of the word "breathe." A little visual trick, implying the meaning of the word in the design of the word.
Romantic poetry from the perspective of a female protagonist -- there were some more obvious routes I could have chosen for the design and the colour scheme. I experimented with some soft pinks, and I experimented with depicting the beach scene in "beachy" colours (ie. yellow for the sand, blue for the water).
In the end, I didn't want to be quite so obvious. I prefer to imply something, rather than represent it literally, so I chose a seafoam turquoise background with white accents to give the audience a sense of what they are looking at, rather than telling them right up front.In the end, I just wanted this entire cover to feel like taking a deep breath when you look at it, and I think all the elements here come together well to achieve that.