Book Cover Project / Specification Your next project will be about book cover design. To help prepare for this project you are asked to engage in some initial visual research.
Pecha Kucha Images
Minimalistic appeal/ Negative space intriguing. Does not give anything away to the reader, does the job as a cover.
Vintage style would still be relevant today, love the mixed media collage has great aesthetics relating to title
Interesting cover mixing media, spine explains trilogy visually, great use of shape.
Concept is clever, use of manipulation to connote context illustrative style is appealing.
Really beautiful photography again minimalist and intriguing bringing the viewer closer to inspect the cover, also relates to content. (One of my favourites from my personal bookshelf)
Pecha Kucha comments
Outline
As a professional graphic designer you will often be required to make creative responses to subject matter about which you have little – or no – previous knowledge. This project will deliberately ask you to work with subject content that you’re likely to be unfamiliar with. Please bear in mind that we’re not asking you to become an expert in this subject. This project is designed to help you begin to figure out ways to shape a very basic level of ‘specialist’ understanding into a focused piece of visual communication. And you should also pick up a little bit of new knowledge along the way.
Brief
In 2015 Penguin are going to be launching three new series of books, Penguin Futureshock, Penguin Science-fact and Penguin Well-being. You are asked to produce a range of designs for the launch title of one of these series. Time is short so you should choose and research just one book. Do not research more than one book in any detail or you will not have enough time to complete the creative part of this brief. Your design ideas should work primarily with the subject content of your chosen book. Your thinking must take into account that your book is the first in a ‘branded’ series, so think about how subsequent books in the series might be identified.
Research (AESTHETIC)
Research (Subject)
1984 Themes Language and Communication/ Philosophical Viewpoints Power Warfare Violence Technology and Modernisation Manipulation Repression Loyalty Rebellion Memory and The Past
Research (Wild-card)
Specification
Paperback format, 198mm high x 129mm wide. Front cover only at this stage. The title, sub-title (if there is one), author, logo and series title should all appear on the front. Full colour CMYK and any of the following special processes : • Metallic or florescent ink, foil blocking, spot varnish, emboss, de-boss, die-cut. • If you wish, you can develop ideas that utilise a dust-cover and/or foldover inside flaps And/or a ‘belly-band’ and/or some other form of wraparound and/or endpapers. It is important however that you remember that the format is a massproduced paperback book.
198mm High / 129mm Wide
Ideas
Glitching/Eyes/cameras/ CCTV/technology/ television/censorship/ language/freedom/ constriction/boundaries/ restrictions/dystopia/ uniform/gritty/ visual rebellion/ protest/political campaign aesthetics/ manipulation/distortion/ scanography/80’s aesthetics/war/ propaganda.
Thumbnails
These are the initial thumbnails I have drawn up for the response, they include various media/techniques and processes such as glitching, typography/screen-printing and photography.
Experimentation (Front Cover Only)
1984 has prevalent themes of technology and modernisation, this accompanied with the themes of manipulation and rebellion led me to the concept of image glitching. I feel this would fit really well as you can manipulate the cover designs to show the themes of the book, contextually anchoring the visuals. The idea is to have as simple a design as possible to connote the dystopian ‘formatted’ lifestyle but through glitching show the act of rebelling.
1984 Basic Title
CMYK BLUR added to connote the theme of technology and rebellion in a dystopian scene.
Experimentation Cont.
These initial experiments of the title of the novel really show what I had wished. They show the themes of the novel and I feel its quite an original idea for a book cover especially for the ‘futureshock’ as again I feel it really anchors the context of the word and its meaning and I could perhaps create a real advertising campaign concept with similar aesthetics.
The experiments show the idea of technology and rebellion in the form of glitching and essentially rebelling against the code of the technology, contextually anchoring my work.
Specification 2.2 (Two More Books)
Outline Graphic design outcomes are often required to be adaptable and branded product packaging often needs to be consistent across a range of size and shapes. This next part of the project is about extending and adapting your existing design thinking. Creating something new that is still consistent with the decisions you’ve already made.
Penguin Futureshock
Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury Brave New World Aldous Huxley
Research (Subject)
Fahrenheit 451
Literature and writing Technology and Modernisation Rules & order Wisdom and Knowledge Violence Identity Dissatisfaction Man and the natural world
Brave New World
Science Sex Power Suffering Literature and Writing Freedom and Confinement Isolation Drugs and alcohol Identity Spirituality Society & Class Dissatisfaction
Research (Technical)
Visual research regarding the technicalities of the book cover, however I’m going to try push the boundaries of what’s expected due to the nature of the series and novels individually I want to try and really mess things up to connote the dystopian ideal.
New Title Experimentation
Brave New World
Fahrenheit 451 To answer the brief and to continue an identity within the project and concept I have again blurred the titles of the books to give the covers the feel as to what’s to come as they also have similar motifs and themes throughout the novel and also to create an identity for the futureshock series.
Futureshock Series Title Experimentation
Futureshock I Futureshock II Futureshock III Series originals, To match the titles and to give the book series a sense of identity I have again blurred the title of the series. I feel this works well as the idea of a shock is connoted through the movement the type offers.
New Title Initial Glitch Experiments
The initial experiments for the new title are looking good, I find it interesting how the legibility is really pushed and that its a really unconventional way to look at designing book covers.
New Title Initial Glitch Experiments cont.
The three separate experiments already look like a series before I have even starting to give them the specifications of the penguin books, which is a really good sign..
'Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past' Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal.
1984
George Orwell's dystopian masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four is perhaps the most pervasively influential book of the twentieth century, making famous Big Brother, newspeak and Room 101. The hauntingly prophetic classic novel set in a not-too-distant future where books are burned by a special task force of firemen.
George Orwell
Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone harbouring an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress... Huxley's ingenious fantasy of the future sheds a blazing light on the present and is considered to be his most enduring masterpiece.
ISBN 978-1-846-14430-1
Ray Bradbury
ISBN 978-1-846-14430-1
Brave New World
ISBN 978-1-846-14430-1
Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.
Fahrenheit 451
Basic Book Cover Designs PreGlitch
Aldous Huxley
To start with I have designed basic templates of the three book covers to then take further and glitch, there a few reasons I have designed an extremely minimalistic and basic set of covers. The idea of restriction within dystopia’s each one of the novels shows themes of restriction in some sort. This also helps give the futureshock series a sense of identity making them identifiable together as one series. Also I feel that the glitching of the covers is what is really important to show that each one of the novels has forms of rebellion in the story. The glitch is a visual rebellion against technology which is also a theme through most of the novels.
1984 cover glitch experiments
These experiments of the 1984 novel, they are working really nicely and I am impressed with how they have turned out, I have learnt a new technique with glitching and will enjoy using it in the future. The cover connote the disturbance in the novel and the rebellion along with the theme of technology. So they really do emphasise a number of themes from the novels.
Fahrenheit 451 cover glitch experiments
The experiments for 451 worked just as well, I even got lucky when glitching to end up with relevant colour schemes relating to the semantic of heat, fire, burning a major theme in the story. They reflect the identity of the series well and an identity is forming.
Brave New World cover glitch experiments
Again I am happy with the turnout of the experiments on the brave new world cover, the identity is there the themes through the concept are there. However I have noticed through glitching the covers all as one I could be encroaching on the other elements of the cover such as the spine bleeding on to the back etc. I will experiment with them separately to see whether I can fix it.
Experimenting with the cover/spine/back separately Restriction Restriction appears throughout all of the futureshock series through forms such as dystopian living in a regimented fashion, therefore I’m going to restrict my experimentation, I’m going to glitch the separate elements of book design (cover,spine, back) but only using a certain code. Glitching takes the form of different components, Amount, Seed, Iterations and quality, these are scales of 100 by restriction the number I should create a contextual anchor of restriction. I will also lay the designs out differently to offer a sense of perspective of how the designs would look when manufactured.
Restrictions/ Settings 40/61/3/99 26/43/3/77 26/43/3/68 26/43/3/63
1984 Restricted experiments/ layout experiments
Fahrenheit 451 Restricted experiments/layout experiments
Brave New World Restricted experiments/layout experiments
Idea/Series Development Rather ironically through my experiments of restriction I have had an idea related to freedom. Something the books touch upon but through its binary opposite. The colours n the previous experiments are all different and somewhat ghastly. However I really like this. I like how it celebrates freedom and does somewhat shock the viewer. Connoting the series they belong too. I had the brainwave that the customer buys the book not seeing the cover just knowing that it will be glitches and that every book cover for the series is completely different having no same sequence repeated. Celebrating what the characters in the book couldn’t. This could be helped through an advertisement scheme using gifs and animations and the glitching technique which I will go on to experiment with. Here is the initial video I have created in the form of stills, there is an accompanying soundtrack of static sounds to fit with the theme, I just need to add the “Futureshock� title to create the identity of what is now a product so that the viewer can create a link with the books and the series.
Radical Experiments. I understand that penguin is a well established company and has its conventions which it has been working on for a substantial amount of time, therefore I have had to tone down the glitches so they still have the conventional front, spine and back cover. If I was given complete freedom of the design and could just completely mess with the conventions these are the designs I would use, it works really well and feel it would get a great reaction form the audiences.
The idea behind these experiments is to just create a mess, which is barely legible, because it will interest the viewer, as to what the hell it is. It shows connotations of the story and really fits in with the semantics of the series title. However I just doubt that penguin would choose such a bizarre concept as they are quite an established company with conventional aesthetics
Futureshock series final covers
Futureshock series final covers
Futureshock series final covers
Final Concept
These are just examples of my finals as the real concept is that no book cover is the same, and within the book cover each element is also different. This element of freedom is something which isn’t celebrated within the novels therefore I really want to push it and emphasise the reality of a dystopian nature. The glitching technique represents a rebellion along with connotations of technology and modernisation. I have created an advert that could be a pop up on computer screens to take the viewer by surprise. It could also be a digital billboard advert along with television and other media formats it would also be interesting as a gorilla style advert with it being projected in various public places.