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.   

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.  

CD Case Mock up

I am planning to make my CD case out of recycled card a bit like the material that cereal boxes are made out of.  I wanted to make a mock up to see how i will assemble the CD case and as I only have a few bits of this particular card I decided to just make it out of really rubbish paper. I have decided to create a simple folded card case for my base and to make the inside more interesting, I have decided to create an envelope style CD holder to keep the CD place so it won't fall out of the case.  The final design will look a lot better than this but it helped me to visualise how I will make the final product. 

Poster thumbnails

I have sketched up some thumbnails for the design of my poster. I like both of the ideas but I think i'm leaning more towards the second option because the composition is more interesting than the first one. If I do go ahead with the second design I will have to work out if it needs text and if so where the text should go to make it look good and evenly balanced. I plan on screen printing my A2 poster to give it more of a scandinavian look and feel to it as a lot of illustrations from that part of the world look screen printed. This might be quite a task for me as I don't have much experience with screen printing but I know the basics and i'm up for the challenge of it. My next step is to decide on the colours and start doing test prints to see how it will look. Here are my initial thumbnails 

Rough Album Designs

I have came up with a few different design ideas for my CD design, I just sat and sketched out a few different thumbnails to get more of an idea of what i think worked the best. Here are the drawings that I came up with. 

This is the first design, it is a more refined version of a thumbnail idea that I drew when I thought of my initial ideas. I think this design works well because the composition looks very calm and simple. This matches the vibe and sound of the music. I decided to use the music and the forest for my concept so I put leaves all around the character in the middle as if the leaves are from an enchanted forest and they are protecting her. The central character is curled up in a ball and looks quite innocent but then she also had a cow tail, this adds a bit more of a dark twist to the image. I think the imagery in this design fits the sound and feel of the music quite well. 

The second idea that I had for the CD design was to elaborate more on the central character and focus it more on her. I stuck with the layout of the first sketch as I think it works quite well. After I had drawn this I decided that I do like it but after some consideration I decided that it looks a bit childish. I think this design might work for another purpose for example a children's book or CD but maybe not so much for this album. For now I have decided not to take this design any further.   

For my Third design I thought it would be good to make it more clear what is happening within the image, in this design it is easier to see that the leaves are actually enchanted and are moving towards the character to protect her. I wasn't sure about the typography placement but if I decide to go with this design I will develop that further. After trying out this layout I really liked it because I feel like it makes the image look more interesting. Because I like this design and the first design I though why not make this into the poster design, I feel like if this was the poster then the CD and poster would work really wall together because you might look at the album and wonder what is going on then when you see the poster it sort of adds another element to the story and it tells more of what is happening in the image. 

I will now start to develop the final CD image and develop it further. I will also plan my poster design based off the third CD idea that i had. 

More CD packaging ideas

I wanted to gather more ideas about how i could package my CD so i decided to collect a few different images and put them in a post so i can look back and see what ideas that i like. Here are some of the most interesting ones that i found. 

CD Cover by Hannah Leonard.

CD Case by Lauren Harvill 

CD Design research

There are so many things that can be done with a cd case so I decided to do some research on some really interesting CD case designs as I would like to create something a bit unique if it is possible. 

The case below is very pretty and when opened it has 2 different compartments for booklets and extra things that are included with the album I really like the amount of space that this case has for illustrations. This would be great if I wanted to create extra content to include with the cd.

The case below is very simple as it is just two pieces of card put together and sown around the edges. Although this design is undoubtedly simple i really like it as i think the seams are a lovely effective little detail. this album cover wouldn't be too good if i wanted to include a booklet but if I decided against the idea of a booklet I would definitely consider this option. 

This house shaped album casing is an absolutely bizarre idea for a CD case and iv'e seen nothing like it before. I love this idea but i think its a bit over the top and decadent, although it would definitely make me want to go and buy the album if I liked the artist rather than downloading the music. I think if this idea fit the concept of an illustration it would be amazing to create an idea similar to this although I don't think I will be.   

These are just of the few of the many things that can be done with the packaging of a CD when I create my CD cover I will think about all of the different things that I can do to make the case more interesting so someone would be more likely to buy it, because that is an important factor within the music industry at the moment.