Book design
Kenttäpostia tykin takaa is a story about a young soldier in the war between Finland and Russia. It is my grandma’s book about her father and his experiences during the war. It is based on letters he wrote back to the family during his time on the front.
The cover
The cover of this book is a collage of letters and photographs belonging to my grandma’s father. The word “Kenttäpostia” translates to letters from the front. I chose to trace his handwriting from those letters to make the title feel unique and more intimately connected to the story.
The inside
With this being my real book design, I focused on designing the interior to be clean, legible, and well organized. I made plenty of mistakes along the way, but I learned a lot and am excited to do this again!
The maps
A significant part of the process for this book was creating maps that show the route of the military unit my grandmother’s father was in. The maps were designed not only to help readers follow the story visually, but also to create a connection, since many readers have relatives who fought in the war and visited some of the same places shown on the maps.