Cumulus • The Swimmer
- Tête-bêche-publication
John Cheever’s short story The Swimmer (1964) follows the surreal odyssey of a seemingly ordinary American family father who decides to return home from a Sunday get-together by swimming through the array of pools in his suburban neighbourhood. This publication constitutes a visual analysis of and book design concept for The Swimmer, one side forming a typographical and the other the image-based part.
The story tackles subjects such as alcoholism, family and identity problems, loss, misfortune, and the deceptive facade of the 60s suburban culture, informing various design choices. In particular, the protagonist’s crumbling inner and outer world as well as the increasingly unsettling atmosphere are reflected in significant changes in sky and weather conditions (and even seasons within one day) that I chose as the focus for the visual translation. Inspired by Cheever’s description “In the west there was a massive stand of cumulus cloud so like a city seen from a distance [...]”, I created spatial representations of cloud types according to the story’s sky portrayals. The topographic 3D models and line patterns are constructed based on height maps generated from cloud photographs, materialising the changing ‘landscape’ of the narrative and juxtaposed with Jungian archetypes resulting from the story analysis. Linking back to the association with a water surface on the blue cover of the typography part, the pattern used for both cover sides ultimately connects the ‘above’ and ‘below’ worlds of The Swimmer (the blue foil smells like a pool mattress as well).