Typography

I am going to do a lot more research into typography but for a starting point i thought i would type in 1940's fonts into google and i found a website called my fonts, it was quite helpful because you can search fonts by decade. A lot of different fonts came up for the 40's and they might not be historically accurate but they resemble and relate to fonts that might have been used in the 40's, some are modern and some are more old fashioned. It gave me a bit of help and ideas anyway, now I can build my research up from here and do more research on appropriate typography.   

Colour Palette research

I know that if I decide to use colour for my image, I want to hint towards a more vintage feel as the setting of the book is the 40's. Im not yet sure weather to go with a classic vintage colour palette or a more modern but still vintage looking colour palette. To help me decide I went to the website colour lover to help me out with ideas for colours. Here are a few modern and classic colour palettes that I really liked. When I start to piece together my image I think that will also help me to decide which colours will work best.

 

Artist research: Hari and Deepti

Hari and Deepeti create really beautiful scenes using just plain white paper, They look a bit boring to begin with but after some very clever lighting they are transformed into the most magical looking scenes, they really do transport you into another world. The scenes that they create are focused on storytelling, they depict adventures and travels from all around the world. I would love to try out this technique for my book cover as it is really unique and eye catching. I don't know if it would work for carries war as it is a book for a younger audience and the lack of colour might not attract them as much. On the other hand it could be really effective and work well. Ill have to work with a trail and error attitude to see if this kind of idea will work. It was really hard to chose because all of their pieces are beautiful, but here are some of their designs that I think work best.

Image before lighting and photography

Image after lighting and  being photographed

Yew Trees

In the part of Carries war that I would like to depict on the cover there are a lot of trees, in particular yew trees. Yew trees usually have very wide trunks and a big bushy foliage apart from in autumn and winter when they shed their leaves to reveal long spindly branches that look quite whimsical but at the same time slightly scary and twisted.  
I decided to have a look at some yew trees for some reference to help me re create them. I looked at yew trees in the autumn/ winter time because I feel as though it will add a bit more of a creepy look, this will work well as the part of the book that I am focusing the cover design on is quite scary. Here are some images that I liked and thought would be good to work and get ideas from. 

I decided to then simplify the design of a yew tree a bit whilst still keeping it recognisable, so it was possible to make a paper cut. I created a little trial to see how it would work out. I drew the design first, I drew the left side slightly different to the right to see how I liked the branches to look, I decided that the branches on the right side look a lot better, then i carefully cut it out. I am pleased with how the test has worked and will build and develop this design for my final trees. 

Carries War: Book cover idea

My idea for the book cover for Carries War is to make the book look more interesting to the younger reader as the brief specified that it should make young people want to pick up the book as well as parents. to make the cover look exiting, I decided to focus my idea on a part of the book where Carrie and her brother Nick are walking to Mrs Gotobed's house. They have to walk through a scary dark woodland full of yew trees and they think they are getting chased by something. This is quite an exiting mysterious part of the book. I feel like a creepy but rather whimsical book cover will excite a younger audience and draw them into the book. the characters in the book have to walk through this woodland area a lot throughout the story so I feel although it is a good focal point for the cover. 

Here is a part of the book that describes how the trees look: 'The yew trees in the Grove were dark green and so old that they had grown twisted and lumpy, like arthritic fingers. And in Carrie’s dream, the fingers reached out for her, plucking at her hair and her skirt as she ran. She was always running by the end of this dream, running away from the house, uphill towards the railway line.'

Paper cut practice

I thought I would practice my paper cutting technique at home over the weekend so I decided to make a christmas card because I needed to make some anyway so thought I might as well practice something that I need to whilst not having the pressure of it being for this project. It went really well and I feel more confident about this process for my book cover, my technique is not perfect yet but its really progressing. Now I will start work on the actual paper cutting for the book cover. Here is the cars that I made, I designed it digitally using my drawing tablet then printed it and cut it out of red paper. I then scanned it back into the computer so it would be easier to re produce onto cards.

Waterstones trip: Book cover research

A few days ago I went to the waterstones in Newcastle and looked at different book covers that I liked. There was a large variety of different styles that caught my eye, this might be a long post because there were so many books that I liked. I think I will just include a line of text under each photo stating what I like about the cover just to keep the post a bit shorter. 

 The contrast of the bright rainbow spine against the realistic subtle drawing of a robin is what attracted me to this book, I feel as though it added a modern element to a classic looking book cover. 

This book cover attracted me because I like the use of white and orange against the harsh black background, I also like how the imagery looks like it has been done using a paper cut or digital technique and the text has a very hand  rendered look to it, it adds a unique look to the cover. 

I think that the colour use on this cover is really lovely, the off white cream colour really sets it off nicely and also gives it a more retro feel. the use of three colours is also really good because it makes the cover more striking.

The above cover has really good use of typography and although the cover is very simple I think that it works really well because it has strong concise imagery. 

 I think the very hand drawn look works really well for this book cover because book covers usually have a very finished pristine look to them but it is a nice refreshing change to see something like this that isn't prefect and looks very raw. I think that the more finished looking typography might help with tying it all together and making the book look professional.  

 The above book has a really nice lino cut look to it,  I like that it looks more like a piece of art rather than a book cover. it is very unique for a book cover and thats what really attracts me to it. I also really love the use of colour because it is quite a strange selection to have chosen it it works really nicely. 

The above cover is very simple and mainly focuses on the typography, it is very simple but effective. I think that the colour choices are what makes this book look really nice and elegant. 

 Through the woods cover is very bold and dark, i really like the use of the black red and white. I don't think these colours are appropriate for the book covers that I am designing but it works very well for this book cover. This cover really draws me in because it looks very dark and mysterious. 

Again its the hand drawn quality of this book cover that really draws me into this book because its not usually something that you see an the front of a book. I think this book is more of an an art book but I still really like the design of it

The above book os so unique because the imagery is made from tissue paper, I think this is so unusual and creative. It is very effective and delicate looking. This book is helpful because I am planning on creating unique book covers using paper cutting and ideas like this are helpful to me. 

This life of Pi book is so simple but so effective. The shapes and colours that are used are very striking also the fish underneath the boat add a more interesting element to the image. 

The cover for Gulp has a very clever use of imagery and typography, it works very well and when I saw it I thought it was really impressive looking for such a simplistic design.

The Wolf Princess cover is very simple and whimsical, it looks like a fairytale book cover. I really like the use of snow interacting with the typography I feel although it draws you into that world a bit more.  

From this waterstones trip I have found that a lot of different things look good on book covers and its getting the right balance of typography and imagery that really helps the book look like a finished cover. I am going to really consider the typography in relation to the imagery that I create and hopefully that will make my cover more successful. 

Book cover research

I thought I would have a look at some of my favourite book covers from the books that I own and find out a bit about who created them and why I like them. When I went to my book shelf there were a few that really stood out to me straight away so I thought I would write about them. 

'The book of lost things' has a book cover designed by Rob Ryan, an artist known throughout the world for his paper cut art. This book cover is vital to my research because it is done using the medium that I want to use to create my book cover. I love the colours and composition that has been used, I think it really makes the book stand out with the use of bright red for the background. I also like the subtle bits of imagery such as the keys and the old man used throughout the cover that give hints to things in the book. the cover doesn't give any of the story away and makes it look mysterious which makes me want to read it more. It also has a strong use of typography which is what the penguin brief asks for so this book cover has helped me out in terms of ideas for the typography. 

'The girl who saved the king of Sweden' and 'The 100 year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared' are two very similar book covers that were created by Jonathan Pelham, a book cover designer from London. These books were both written by the same author and thats why they have the same style design. Although these book covers aren't created using paper cut I still think they look like they could have been because they both use very blocky colours. Although these covers mainly use simple shapes to make up the images they still maintain a very illustrative look. I think that my favourite things about these covers are the bright eye catching colours that are used and how the typography is used, these books both have a lot of text on the front but the way that it has been handled doesn't make it overpowering at all. looking at this book cover might help me if I decided to do a book cover for 'Oranges are not the only fruit' as that has quite a long title. 

The last book cover that really caught my was 'Mr Penumbras 24 hour bookstore' designed by Adam Simpson, It has a very graphic cover that focuses a lot on the typography but it cleverly incorporates imagery linking to the story in the book. I think that this book does a really good job of subtly liking the cover to the story as the cover is very modern and looks computer generated whilst still using slightly older colours, and the story incorporates both an old traditional book shop and very modern technology. I think it is the style and boldness of the imagery that attracts me to this book cover. The colours are also very bold and striking so that draws mw in a lot as well.  I would like to use this book cover for colour inspiration as they work quite well as modern retro colours. 

 Overall looking at these book covers has helped me to realise what I like in a book cover and I have noticed that they all have a strong use of colour and especially typography. This is something I am going to try and research and learn about because typography is not my strong point but I really love how it looks and i'm really interested in it.   

Artist research: Elsa Mora

Elsa Mora is a multimedia artist originally from Cuba. She creates a lot of paper cut art because she is fascinated by the endless possibilities of the medium. she liked to turn  a flat piece of paper into something meaningful. 
She creates fully white pieces as well as full colour pieces. She also creates flat and 3D images from using the paper in different ways, sometimes she will just cut into the flat paper to create an image and other times she will mould and layer the paper to create an image. I really like the versatility of her work because she creates a large range of styles with in her work whilst still keeping it recognisably similar, I think that this keeps her art interesting. I think her 3D pieces work really well and I would like to try out creating a 3D paper cut piece for my carries war book cover. 

Paper cut practice: christmas card

As I am going to attempt paper cutting for my book cover I decided to do some practice so I chose to attempt to make a christmas card as I wanted to anyway. I decided to do a design with a woman wrapped up an a scarf holding some hot chocolate as that feels pretty festive to me. I have not finished the full card yet but I have constructed the main part of the woman, I just need to glue her down. It took about two hours because it is the first time I have really attempted this and it took a few tries. Overall I am really pleased with it so far, I will continue to work on it tomorrow and will hopefully get it finished soon in time for christmas.  Here is what I have done so far. 

Artist research: Gail Armstrong

As I would like to create my penguin book cover for carries war using a paper cut and sculpt technique I decided to re visit this artist as I have researched her work before but not in much detail and she has created more work in the months since I have looked at it. 
Gail Armstrong creates beautiful illustrations made from folding, layering and sculpting paper into different shapes to describe things. I love her colour work but I especially think that her white paper work works even more. I was thinking of doing my book cover in coloured paper/ card but after looking at her white paper work I am considering trying out just white, but probably wont end up using white for the final piece. I think that the camera and lighting definitely make these images work because a lot of the time the only way that you can see the shape of the paper is because of the way the light is hitting it. There is a for me lot to consider and learn if I want to go ahead with this process and it will definitely take a lot of practice. These photos have watermarks but they were the best resolution that I could find. 
I also came across a video of the artist creating one of the pieces so iv'e included that as well.

Modern puffin book covers

WARNING: Very long post :)

As this brief is to create a new book cover and for the carries war brief in particular states that they would like the book cover to attract younger people as well as parents, I thought that I should look at modern puffin covers to see what works currently within the market. All of the puffin book covers are so different, it is clear that there is no straight forward recipe to creating a book cover. This makes it quite hard because any style or layout could work as long as it is eye catching and fits the book. One thing that is noticeable when looking at all of the book covers is that they are pretty simple but very effective. I have looked at a few different book designs, I think that some of them were previous entrants into the penguin book design competition, and discussed what I think works best and what I think doesn't work very well. 

The first three book covers that I looked at were covers for Grimm's fairy tales, they're all very different but work really well in their own way. In the first cover i think that the way the text works with the image is very nice, the trees give it a lovely frame. I also really like the hand drawn look that it haves it gives it a very modern feel, the colours used also give the cover a really nice mood that fits the books theme. 

This book cover works really well in my opinion because it is very quirky and modern looking but still has a raw un processed look which personally I love. I think the font also works really nicely because it fits so well with the style of the drawing.  The black used throughout the image adds an undertone of darkness to the image and this communicates the darkness of the books contents well. I think that the back of this book cover could have been slightly improved because it looks very bland compared to the front of the book but other than that I think the book is very well composed. 

The final Grimm book cover that I looked at is very dark compared to the other two but I think it works just as well. Although I personally really like this cover, in my opinion I think that it may be slightly too dark for children and it could scare them. Design wise, I think it works wonderfully as it is composed really nicely, I like how the tongue is used to describe the path that the children are walking on. I also really like the bright yellow and red against the dark black and grays that are used. The font is also very fitting as it looks a bit creepy like the rest of the cover. 

Overall I think that I like the second cover the best out of the Grimm covers because I feel as though it is appropriate for children of all ages and genders and it has the right amount of darkness to not scare a child. 

 This James and the Giant Peach book cover is more simplistic compared to the other book covers that I have looked at but it works so well for the story. It describes the shape of the peach using all of the characters from the book, I think this is a very clever thought out book design. The typography, I feel, references Quentin Blake's style which is really nice as it brings the book design back to the original style that would have been used to illustrate this book. I also like the peach stone on the back. I think that the simplicity of this book cover works nicely 

The next book cover, A Little Princess, is a lot more illustrated in a traditional sense as even though it could have been digitally created, it looks like it has been painted. I think the colours work really well and make the book have a lovely, happy look and feel to it. I really like how all of the main characters are featured on the cover because I feel as though it makes me want to read the book to learn all about them. The typography interacts and overlaps the illustration which is quite unique but I think it works well as it makes the image look like the typography is a well considered part of the whole image instead of looking like an afterthought. 

 The cover below caught my eye when I was looking at different designs because the composition of image and typography work so well together. I love the brush strokes used on the otter because it makes the illustration look interesting whilst remaining realistic, The really fluid position that the otter also makes the image flow really nicely. The only thing that i'm not too sure about the design of this cover is the authors name because it looks quite separate from the design, it looks a little bit like it was just put on as an after thought. Other than that this is a really lovely book design.

After looking at all of these book covers, it is hard to pin point what works best for a cover design as they are all so different, but all work so well. I think that the key to creating a great book design is to really consider the imagery and typography and how they work together, but at the same time always referencing to the themes in the book and the target audience.

Inside Random house

Whilst researching book covers i though that I would search for youtube videos that have tips on creating book covers. I came across a really good video by random house where different book cover designers take you through their process and share their tips. Its a great video and gave me some really good advice that I can apply to my own process, such as making as many different versions of the cover until I get the perfect one and letting the text interact with the imagery.  

1940's Book illustration

As the time frame of the book Carries war will be around the 1940's I have decided to look into book illustration of that time. Lithograph was a very popular method of printing illustrations back in the 1940's. When first looking at the illustrations I have noticed that they all use very similar bright colours and a simple but still slightly realistic look. they also have very limited colour palettes and the same subdued, mainly primary colours are used a lot. Some illustrations from the 40's use an even more limited colour palette of one colour along with black and white, this will have been to save money as there were a lot of money shortages because of world war 2. 
I think the style of 1940's book illustration is very iconic and cannot really be confused with any other style. The look and feel of 40's illustration is coming back into fashion now but I still think it is possible to tell the difference between the original 40's books and the modern ones because the original style is so unique to that time period.
Here are a few examples of 1940's illustrations. 

Evacuation of children during the war- Research

During the War it was decided that children should be sent away from their parents to places with less risk of getting attacked and bombed. The children would stay with people that lived in the place that they were sent to, the 'host families' would take them in and look after them as their own. About 800,000 children left their homes many returned home after a few weeks but the rest stayed until the end of the war. The children would go to school as normal and they would be evacuated by their school teachers and taken to trains off to different locations such as Devon, Cornwall and Wales and a few other locations. 

The children would be sad waving goodbye to their mothers but they would have also felt exited as their mothers and teachers would have been preparing them and re assuring them about going away. Each evacuee would have a gas mask, food for the journey and a bag for washing things and clothes. Every child had a label pinned to their coat  with their personal details and where they were going on it. The journey would often take several hours on a train. 

Many of the children, although they missed home, enjoyed the countryside as it was all new and exiting to them some children would have never seen a cow or vegetables growing in a field before and they would have been amazed at things like this. A lot of the children became friends the locals and the 'townies' even amalgamated and became good friends. 

Most of the children returned home after the war unless they had reasons for not returning for example, if they had no parents to go back to. A lot of the children were happy about returning home but others preferred the country life a lot more as they were more privileged there. 

Here are some old photos of children being evacuated from the cities during world war world war 2.