FINAL BOOK COVER DESIGNS

Here are my final 3 designs to take to my crit next week. Each one a slight variation. The first one uses the red and blue colour palette, has no logo on the spine and shows one idea of the placement of the text on the back cover, with also a variation on title placement too within the car. The second two show the same alternative text placement, but uses different colours and also different placements of the logo on the spine. My favourite design is the second, I feel that the red and blue cover reflects my concept ideas for it best. Also the text placement fits nicely through round the imagery. Regarding the placement of the logo, many of my peers have preferred it placed centrally as its more eye-catching and interesting that would stand out within a book shelf. Therefore I think my first choice design to submit is the second design followed by the third as the blue also aesthetically works well. i will talk to my tutor next week and see what he thinks and how to move forward.

Book Cover placed in book store:

Since my last trip into Waterstones to see what my book cover looked like amongst, I decided to do this again as this proved to be a very useful way of seeing what works and what doesn't.

The first cover I photographed incorporated the blue cover, with the red featuring the 'outsiders' car and using this as a logo on the centre of the spine. 

Book Cover amongst table of Penguin Books.

Side View

Spine within bookshelf

The second cover I photographed was the all blue cover. Using the dark blue 'outsiders' car as a logo at the top of the spine. You can also see here the new design for the back cover.

Front Cover among other Penguin Covers

Spine within bookshelf.

Back Cover

As I'm at the final stage of my ideas now, I'm looking into creating 3 finals to then decide from. Since my last blog post, I have pushed my back cover design forwards a lot. Moving away from the repeat design in two blocks and to the a full spread of lino car pattern. This is because a successful book jacket should have a front and back cover that flows, whereas the initial idea for the back cover was quite rigid and the placement of the text did not reflect the integrated positioning of type within the imagery of the front cover. I re-worked the back cover to try create the same fluidity by placing the text around the cars. I need to make some minor adjustments but overall its now coming together. I just need to decide what colour palette to use and the placement of the logo on the spine or whether I even need it? Regarding colour palette, I used the rusty red colour because it firstly reflects the red of the American flag, relative as its an american author and fiction, and also the colour of rust = death is talked about within the narrative. Using the alternative of the dark blue also is there to represent the divide between the two gangs. From this point on I will carry my ideas through to a final 3 to then decide from!

Platform Workshop development:

Last friday we used the day to experiment and explore our initial ideas for the 'Workshop' Platform. Using the tiles cut out of mount-board, we painted them red and white to go with the candy pic 'n' mix theme going on in the shop platform. Then on a powerpoint have a scrolling of words to act as stimuli for the audience to respond to. Trying this within a grid space on the table and on the floor, responding to words such as bird and fear, other groups tried out our idea. Working on the floor felt more playful and interactive. Working on a possibly bigger scale could work really well and revoke child's play for all ages. We will work further on this the next coming Friday.

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Reflection on the book cover in situe.

Developing my book jacket, I decided to print out the final versions I created, wrap it round the book itself and took it into Waterstones to see what it would look like when placed among other books!

Placed among other Penguin Books - Version 1

" - Version 2

Version 1 - Front Cover

Version 2 - Front Cover

Spine

Since my initial ideas, I re-worked the cover focusing on the colours - BLUE, RED AND WHITE. This is because they are the colours of the American Flag, and as its an American text, I thought that I could possibly bring in this colour palette to work with to push my ideas. As you can see above our two versions I printed. Version 1 shows the blue front cover, its back cover is in red…

And Version 2 is the opposite, red front cover with blue back cover…

Here I have split the imagery of the car repeats and placed them above and below the text. For the spine, I though that the title and authors name only looked quite plain. This is why I also added the image of the small car n the dark silhouette at the top of the spine to link in with the covers. I also experimented with using the exact scanned in prints as this has a texture to it, and  I compared this to making each car a flat colour. At first I thought that the flat colours would be more successful on the cover, even though I preferred the textured because for a penguin/puffin book jacket I thought it might work better for its audience. But talking to others they all seem to like the textural images, so this difference could add something extra to the cover and be a bit more interesting to look at than just plain colour. Also. I moved away from the prints where I had worked over the top with text, to the simpler silhouetted car in a darker colour to show the difference within the car repeats. This version is simpler and I think works clearer than the others. The spine needs a bit more work - moving the text to the left a little so its more centred but apart from that I am really happy with the front cover and spine. The back cover may need some more work as some have said it seems a bit repetitive. Not really adding anything more to the cover so does it really need to be there? Maybe I could crop some of the texture from the print and place it behind the text or lino cut a line of cars or top of cars, so the imagery is different to what is established on the front. But I have been working on this cover for many days now, so what I'm going to do now is move onto my next project, then come back to it in a couple of weeks with a fresh head!

Initial Book Cover Designs

Here are some examples of my first visualisations of the book cover. Using my scanned in lino cuts within the given PDF template, experimenting with type, imagery and composition. I came up with a number ideas using the cars on the front and back cover. I thought the simpler the image, the clearer the meaning can be conveyed to the audience. As my idea is about portraying the divide within the social gangs focused on in the narrative through symbol of their cars, illustrating this through isolation. Within my experimentations of typeface, I have chosen Avenir as it is a simple, crisp, contemporary serif font. I tried using sans serif type but because my cover has a young, new atmosphere to it, the sans serif looked to out of place and traditional. This element also inputed on my placement of the title. The example at the front with the type in the white banner, has a feel of a penguin book, but it looks classic. Not new, which was why I started to the place the title and author within the shapes of the cars.

From these, I will develop my ideas further. I have only used the colour blue and I think looking into other colours would be good to see the results as well as focusing on the spine too, as this is very important when displayed in a bookshelf.

UEA Collaboration Finale!

The Exhibition.

To conclude the collaboration project with the UEA students, last friday we had an exhibition inviting all that took part. I set up the seven final spreads for me and my partner to show the process, progress and conclusion of our work, shown in the examples below. I included pieces I had also made within the 'hardware' workshops to show how I came to the idea of the composition of the final spread. Therefore, two pages were from this workshop, one for the final spread and then the other pieces show both the texts and poems Georgie sent to me, with my development images or final imagery placed behind or beside the type.

When talking to Georgie's UEA tutor, he asked me to explain what I was presenting. I said how the themes I were working from within Georgie's prose were confusion, distortion, falling, lost and dreams. That is why I sectioned out the images and as the project went on they became more abstract. Georgie sent me a lot of prose to respond to - fiction and poetry, because of this and the ideas I were working from, I decided to cut up all 4 pieces of text she sent me and composed it myself onto the page. Portraying distortion and confusion through the presentation of the spread. Therefore, her text also became my own, as I formed the text in the end from her words and phrases. The tutor really liked this approach and response and recommended me to take a look at William Burrough's: Naked Lunch. I thought it would be more interesting to work in this way rather than just placing the text beside an image. Conveying my ideas behind my work and Georgie's.

7 spreads for exhibition

Close-up of work

Final double page-spread

Reflecting back over this project, I really enjoyed working with a writer, as I have never done this before. The role of the editor is normally placed upon the writer in the work place and publishing industry, but in this project I changed these roles around through myself editing the text down to work with the visuals. It was a shame I never got to meet my partner as she could not attend the final show, but it has been good and beneficial experience for the both of us.