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.