Book Cover Design Project #22 – A Chain Is Only As Strong As Its Weakest Link

“A Chain Is Only As Strong As Its Weakest Link” – The phrase is quite literal and is derived from the fact that a chain with a weak link is weak as a whole because of it’s dependence on the strength of each individual link. Figuratively the phrase compares an organization or technical system to a chain. The term “weak link” describes a less than perfect individual, person or feature, of that organization or system.

In today’s design I found a great piece of clip art to us in the composition, an illustration of a bicycle chain and gears. I manipulated the appearance of one of the links to represent its imminent failure. I wanted the visual to reflect not just a weak link but the system that the weak link is attached. Here we see that there are several links with one about to fail. The gears represent the system which depends on the chain to function. The links could represent people in an organization. Each person must pull his or her weight evenly to some degree or another, otherwise the system as a whole is compromised and might come to a grinding halt.

I chose Helvetica Neue Condensed as my typeface (yet again) as it is clean and easy to read. The bold weight of the first portion of the phrase indicates the strength and power that we come to expect from a chain (or an efficient system). the light weight of the second portion serves as a subtle reminder that that strength can be compromised by the proverbial “weak link”. The typography of this portion of the phrase is set in a red color to indicate a sense of alarm or caution.

Reminders: I am always accepting submissions for words or phrases. If you would like to see me design something around yours, submit it in the comments area below. Also, If you are on Facebook please add Circadian Creative’s Facebook page to your “liked” pages. If you log into Facebook and do a search on Circadian Creative it will come up at the top of the list. I update the page daily after each post here and I have also archived the daily designs by month in the photo section.

See you all tomorrow.
Sean