Proiezione Origami – Book Cover Design

This cover design project began as a collaboration with the Italian author Alessandra Arcieri, who penned a cryptic and futuristic tale titled Proiezione Origami, set in a cyberzen world where consciousness, code, and combat blur into a single stream of unfolding events.

Introduction to the Narrative

“Rome, New York, Bombay. What will be the next target?”

Set in a fragmented future, the narrative explores transcontinental power plays, high-stakes psycho-games, and mythic figures recast in digital landscapes. The protagonist, known as Agent Alpha, must decode a layered conspiracy crafted by a corporate demiurge. Her mission is embedded within verses from Walt Whitman’s I Sing the Body Electric—a haunting reference and anthem for the electrified self.

Design Requirements

The author had a very clear vision for the cover:

• Urban skyline as backdrop.
• Mathematical formulas flowing through the layout.
• The sentence: “Mata-Hari non è mai esistita – Mata-Hari has never existed” displayed prominently.
• An emphasis on duality: plus/minus, presence/absence, light/shadow.

The Visual Concept

Initially, the cover started as a static cityscape. But the breakthrough came from sound. Instead of drawing just buildings, I captured a waveform of the spoken phrase “Mata-Hari has never existed,” visualized with emphasis and cadence. That soundwave became the skyline—bridging the analog with the electric.

The math formulas were repositioned to climb upward like antennas—extending into the ether from the rear cover only—allowing the front page to stay clean, monolithic, like the mask of a cipher.

A sky/lake duality emerges: the soundwave bridges both realms, hinting at reflection, inversion, and recursion—a motif central to the book.

Cyberpunk Symbolism and Whitman’s Verse

The book’s theme draws heavily from I Sing the Body Electric—Whitman’s poetic hymn to embodied existence and spiritual circuitry:

“If the body were not the soul, what is the soul?”

This verse is repurposed in the book as a hacked manifesto, where the electric body becomes both medium and message. The cover reflects that—especially in the lower mirrored soundwave, a literal and conceptual echo of the upper skyline. The body of the city sings itself—digitally, electrically.

Origami as Metaphor

To tie it to the book’s title, I designed a minimalist origami butterfly—a symbol of fragility, transformation, and encoded design. It flutters on the back cover like a totem of nonlinear logic and recursive storytelling.

Origami, after all, is folded language—a perfect metaphor for a plot that reshapes itself with every layer peeled back.

My Preface – Cyberpunk in Tone

The story interlaces seamlessly between the ever-existing layers of knowledge and notion, human and machine, duality (0, 1), pivoting over the fulcrum of the third state: nil, Z, or the high impedance mode. Just like ideal operational amplifiers, the travelling Agents with infinite input impedance and zero output impedance will induce stray currents in your body electric—across a live circuit board shaped just like a table game.
– LC

Final Notes

The final cover was printed in full wraparound format with high gloss lamination. The title sits across two realms—solid and wave, text and voice. Like the book itself, it challenges the reader to listen as much as to look.

Purchase

You can find Proiezione Origami by Alessandra Arcieri at:

• Proiezione Origami on Amazon.it
• Proiezione Origami on ibs.it
• Proiezione Origami on ilmiolibro.it

Rome, New York, Bombay. What will be the next target? In a scenario á-la Blade Runner, in a time marked by attacks and dominated by the logics of psycho-empowering games, every experience is transformed into Agone and every gamer in Ludopath. The jingle of the new role-playing game is a song by the TV musical “Fame”, inspired by the verses of Walt Whitman. Among these verses lies the secret of Agent Alpha’s mission. The rebel player, determined to neutralize the mother-company and to discover the identity of the powerful demiurge, will have to deal with a fearsome opponent sent to flush her out, some mercenaries and a series of events created on-spot by the game. Among excellent university campuses, historic cities and metropolis with gray tones, all is played without the exclusion of blows. Alpha has a precious ally, a valid Master and a secret and very powerful energy resource, which she does not yet know. She will first have to sing the electric body. Finalist book at BUK Modena 2017.