Publication design with FES-India

A series of twelve papers on Artificial Intelligence in India, published by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung India. I designed the covers and the publication layout across the whole run.

A series has to solve a problem a single cover does not: twelve of them have to look like one body of work while each still says what it is about. So the drawing is fixed and only one thing inside it moves. A mechanical hand holds a lens, constellation lines scatter around it, and inside the lens sits the subject of that volume: a pointing finger for democracy, a skyline for future cities, a gear and a leaf for sustainability, an anchor for the ports, a rupee for finance, a mortarboard for education, a sprout for agriculture.

Colour does the rest of the sorting. Each volume takes its own ground, so a shelf of them reads as one set at a distance and as twelve separate papers up close. The first takes a gradient rather than a flat field, because it is the one that opens the series.

It is all line work on a single flat colour, which is a production decision as much as a visual one. The covers had to survive office printing and a small thumbnail on a publications page, and line art holds at both ends where a photograph would not.

All twelve are published and readable in full: Vol. 1, AI for All: 10 Social Conundrums for India · Vol. 2, The Wicked Problem of AI Governance · Vol. 3, Taking Stock of Artificial Intelligence in Indian Agriculture · Vol. 4, Industrial Revolution 4.0 and the Impact on Automotive Sector · Vol. 5, Impact of Digitalisation in the Ports Sector · Vol. 6, Making AI Work in Indian Education · Vol. 7, Regulating AI in the Finance Sector in India · Vol. 8, Artificial Intelligence for Sustainability · Vol. 9, Industrial Revolution 4.0 and the Impact on Information Technology Services Sector · Vol. 10, AI and Education in India · Vol. 11, Artificial Intelligence and Future Cities · Vol. 12, Artificial Intelligence and Democracy.