Book Cover for Albanian Linguist

Peisazhet e Fjalës

A good friend, who I met while he was working as a translator for NATO, approached me to design his father’s book cover.

His father, Xhavit Kryeziu, helped solidify disparate Albanian dialects into a singular, standardized language in the 1960′s and 70′s, and his most recent book is a collection of articles he wrote from that time period.

Through his son, Professor Kryeziu communicated his love of the written word, and asked me to design a cover that showed the beauty of his homeland of Kosovo and the elegance of the Albanian language that is spoken there by a large percentage of its populace.

Initially we tried a fully text-based design, both with his portrait and the canoe, but both looked too severe and far too angular, so I moved on to this. The professor approved, and we moved to print.

I love this. It’s a vast improvement over the covers of my father’s other books. It’s beautiful and he loves it, Evan. Thank you!

– Besim Kryeziu

Both Besim and his father loved the final result, a perfect-bound trade paperback that looks at home on all the shelves it’s slated to grace: university library, book store, and home.