Design journal by Holly Manning

Unit 01 External Context Holly Manning

External Context Part 01

Chapter 01 CHAPTER ONE: THE BRIEF Page 05 Unit 01 Project Brief Penguin Book Covers Initial Thoughts

Chapter 02 CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH Page 11

Existing Book Covers 2017 Competition Winner Contextual Research Back Covers Spine Design Inspirational Book Covers

Chapter 03 CHAPTER THREE: DESIGN PROCESS Page 57 Typography Initial Designs Seminar 01 Seminar 02 Experiments Seminar 03 New style experiments Feedback

Chapter 04 CHAPTER FOUR: EVALUATION Page 135

n our first day back at uni, we have been given the first brief. We’re kicking off the year by completing two types of competitions. The first part of the project consists of a selection of mock competitions which we will complete as though entering the real thing, followed by the second part where we actually enter competitions of our choice. This will be a very interesting unit, and particularly challenging due to restrictions we will have, but I am also excited to experiment with something new and have the opportunity to come out of my comfort zone to complete this. Our options for part 01: • Produce a music video • Penguin book cover competition • Brand creation for Crowne Plaza

For me, the penguin book cover competition immediately stood out to me. Not only am I particularly fond of editorial graphic design, but I am a keen reader so for me this is ideal. I would like to experiment with film / video editting at some point, but a music video just doesn’t appeal to me and I want to ensure I am doing something I love and can find a passion for to keep me motivated.

Unit 01 Project Brief

Penguin Book Covers Adult Fiction Cover Award To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

A book I am very familiar with, having studied it while doing my GCSEs. The story is really amazing, particularly the strong topics it touches on. Although it’s fiction, it is loosely based on the author’s experiences at childhood.

Adult Non-Fiction Cover Award In Cold Blood by Truman Capote Luckily, another book I am familiar with. This time I studied it in A Levels, so in more depth. It is a really fascinating, but also suspenseful true story about a family who were brutally murdered in the own home after a robbery-gone-wrong.

Children’s Cover Award The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend This is a book I am not familiar with at all, but know that my mum read it when she was younger and said it is really very funny. Would be interesting, but at the moment I’m not keen on illustrative styles.

I feel like this is a really good selection of books to choose from and has made me very excited about the project to come. I am lucky to already have some substantial knowledge of the two adult books, and for me I would prefer to do the adult books to the children’s as that just better suits my style, but even so, I have heard nothing but good things about the childrens book, so even if I did decide to go down that route it will be a fun and interesting decision.

My own copy of To Kill a Mockingbird from my English GCSEs

Initial Thoughts A

fter our first day back at uni, and having had a think about the project ahead, I am feeling very excited but also very nervous. What sounds like an easy task is most certainly not going to be that way. I know I need to try and think outside of the box to make this a successful and exciting project, but I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to overthink it too much which I will innevitably do. I was really torn between In Cold Blood and To Kill a Mockingbird as I know them both really well and enjoyed studying them in the past. But, I think I have come to the decision that I will do the project based on To Kill a Mockingbird as the racial and culural themes of the

time it is set is very interesting and I find the fact that the narrator is a child particularly fascinating and a great choice as the child can be naive and not really understand whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going on and therefore have an innocent mind in what was at the time a horrible world and society.

aving decided to do To Kill a Mockingbird for my Penguin Book Cover Competition, I have started by looking at existing book covers for the novel. It is very interesting to see that the majority of them include a bird in them. To me, this is very obvious and so I will aim to move away from this completely and think of something unique I can do to make it deeper in meaning and also related to the context behind the story which is what I find extremely fascinating about the novel. I do however like the theme of bright colours to emphasise the dramatic themes behind the novel itself. The book is very gothic in nature, so itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not surprising to see a lot of blacks and

deep colours being used throughout to accompany some dark imagery (such as weapons and murdering of birds!).They are almost all very simple in the way that they include the title, a bold colour for the background and small amount of imagery to go with it.

Existing Book Covers

First US Edition in 1960 by J.B. Lippincott Company

First US Edition 1960 T

his is the first existing edition of the book, with only 5,000 printings produced. This is a nice styled cover with a dark colour palette. Again there is the use of a tree in the imagery which could relate to the tree that is mentioned in the book that one of the children broke their arm by falling from, or it could be loosely related to Mockingbirds - i.e. their habitat. The font is a really interesting choice as it looks almost caligraphic or almost of Chinese culture, particularly with the style of illustration used for the tree imagery. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a really nice book cover but these days does show itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dated methods of creation and style.

1st British Edition in 1960 by Heinemann

his beautifully illustrated book cover from 1960 is depicting a scene whereby the father figure (Atticus Finch) is protecting his two children what seems like from a cruel outside world. The people are made to look like theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re coming after them as their faces look serious and determined. It looks almost like it could be a film poster / design too

with the dramatic scene it is creating and the large, capitalised fonts used to display the book name and author. There are a range of colours used in this one rather than a strict colour palette, but all of them are quite dark to enhance the seriousness being portrayed.

1st British Edition 1960

50th Edition May 2006

16 50th Anniversary Edition in May 2006 by Harper Perenniel Modern Classics

he esign of this book cover is very interesting in the way it has taken a very similar style to the very first edition released. The tree used looks almost the same and they have also used the use of block colours to separate two sections of the cover. The font is very different and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve separated the name of the novel with a black box, but other than that there are very similar segments being reused for this design. The name of the company that created it is Harper Perennial Modern Classics which sounds a lot like they have taken the classic and just put a new spin on it, modernising it in a way.

50th Edition by Arrow Books Ltd

June 2010 by Arrow Books P

ublished in June 2010, this book cover celebrates the 50th anniversary of the novel. It includes some key features of the novel, such as a young child (Scout Finch, the narrator in the book) playing on the tyre swing which is another element of the book. The writing is very striking and takes up a large portion of the composition so it is immediately clear that the book is To Kill a Mockingbird. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quite a literal design, which isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a bad thing as it will be instantly recognisable but will be good to try and think of something a bit outside the box that has a more complex meaning behind it. Arrow is a company within Penguin that specialises in paperback books, such as this one. They proudly produce book covers for a wide range of authors across several genres.

Cover Winner T

his is the winning cover of this year’s competition for To Kill a Mockingbird. It is a beautiful, striking design that really catches the eye, particularly through the use of colour choices. To me, it is much nicer than the existing, older book covers as it has much more depth to it than the obvious bird and some imagery of weapons or ways of ‘killing a mockingbird’. It definitely deserved to win, and has helped me to decide to continue down the route of a much more complex meaning.

Richard Ogle – Art Director, Transworld

“A bold, graphic solution. It’s a confident concept that catches your attention on first viewing but layers of meaning reveal themselves as you look. A worthy winner.”

Inspirational Book Covers N

ow that I have seen existing versions of the books covers, I have moved on to gain inspiration from other styles of book covers that I could bring into my own. The examples here are very simplistic and I have done it this way as the book is from the perspective of a child. The common colours here are blacks and whites, which I think is important to display given the books very strong racial context behind it and the connotations of segregation in the era it was set. The era itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s set is the 1930s which would have had a very different style of design - perhaps something else I can look into.

I would like to touch on the fact that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s from the perspective of a child as, particularly due to the context behind it, it was a very interesting choice to make a child as the narrator as a child would have very innocent and different views to those at the time, and particularly could be easily manipulated into believing / seeing things a certain way depending on who they learn things from. Also using typography (see: The Thief) and manipulating the way it looks to tell a story could be extremely poweful, even if only simple to look at.

fter the first seminar, I was advised to try and change the format of my book cover to be a publication, particularly looking at 1930s publications - the time that the novel is set. This moodboard reflects a few of the publications I looked at that I found very visually appealing, although the feedback was that it looks very German in design but the novel is based in America, so perhaps I need to look into that specifically more. I am torn between which kind of publication to base it on. A newsletter makes the most sense as the novel is about a legal case for a man accused of rape, and a magazine doesn’t reflect that kind of storyline very well, but the magazine designs appeal to me much more than newspapers as there is much more imagery and colour to it then a newspaper that is heavily textual based. That said, the colours from this

moodboard are really nice and would work perfectly in relation to the themes set in my chosen novel. It is quite a dark story, so blacks and reds are colours that instantly work with this idea, particularly the gothic side to the story. Although I’m not sure yet if I will go down this route, it was still helpful to look at in terms of colour palette inspiration to see what other people were using in that era and in quite an abstract style. The layouts are quite simple in the limited amount of content obviously apart from the newspaper which is filled with content. However, with the very minimal content, they have laid them out in a really effective, unconventional way to make it much more appealing and abstract to look at. If they had designed it in an orderly way, it wouldn’t stand out so much to it’s audience.

1930s Publications

aving spent a lot of time focussing on how the front cover of my design should look, I am suddenly aware that I haven’t thought very much about the back cover. Although it seems like it will be an easy job - just putting in the blurb and price etc - I think there will be a lot more to it and I will get very frustrated over it. I’ve chosen to look at a few book back cover designs here to give me some initial inspiration for my own design. These are just simple ones I’ve found online just for basic inspiration and one thing I instantly notice is that 3 out of 4 of them use the style of the cover to work around the blurb. In some of them, there is imagery going across from the front cover that the text works around, which I think is a nice idea to make the overall cover look very thought out, and not as if someone has stuck two very different pieces of design on the front and back of a book. In the left to kill a mockingbird book, they

have even incorporated it into the design of the spine. This makes it an ongoing piece of illustration that on the book itself will be clear, but you have to move the book around to see it all, but when it’s laid out flat as it is on the example I’ve put, it is very clear there is a continuous illustration and it makes the book cover so much more interesting. The book cover above this writing also continues from the front cover, but the opposite way. Instead of going from the front cover, to the spine then to the back, this one goes right from the front cover and the from the left of the back cover so if you’re holding the book you can still make it continue through moving the book round, but the opposite way. This is also very interesting as it isn’t the obvious idea behind this and so makes it likely to be looked at more to work out what’s being displayed.

Book Back Covers

My book shelf at home, in my room.

Book Spine Designs

think the spine of a book is something that could be easily overlooked, however I think it is an extremely important element as when a book is on a shelf, it is the first thing people will see - as displayed in all the images I have chosen here. The key purpose of the spine of a book is to display the author’s name and the title of the book. Adding other elements such as imagery, colour schemes or design makes it much more appealing to people looking at a book shelf, and an attempt to make people want to pick it up without seeing the rest of the design. Although the series of penguin books in the top right of the next page are very simple in design, they are very distinctive in design due to the orange colour used alongside their penguin icon. Their aim is to demonstrate penguin books and are doing so successfully, however not making each book unique and appealing in their own ways. I love the way the Sherlock Holmes books are each crafted to show a segment of the iconic Sherlock Holmes silhouette so that when they are

put together as a series it shows the full image. This is a beautiful idea and makes the spines so much more appealing and would definitely stand out amongst a range of other book covers, simply due to the thought and fascinating ideas put into creating them.The bottom left ones are beautifull created to include shapes alongside the text to make them more exciting to look at. If they were just white books with black text, they might look very academic, but the use of black and white abstract shapes with one chosen colour to accompany it makes them so much more appealing, and for me it would make me want to pull the book out of the shelf to see what the rest of the book cover looks like. From what I can see, the shapes don’t relate particularly to the names of the books but they look very appealing due to the abstract design it is presenting, and I think that is enough. They say don’t judge a book by it’s cover, but a beautifully designed book / spine is definitely more likely to make you pick it up.

ow I have looked at the back of book covers and the spine design separately, I have decided to explore a few books as a whole design to see how it has been done. All of these are fictional stories, but some are fantasy to show a slightly wackier design. Lord of the Rings is a fictional book, but it is also a fantasy due to itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s storyline of wizards, hobbits and other fantastical beings. This book cover is quite simple in design, having been separated into blocks to define the imagery and text throughout. The black and yellow works really well together as a beautiful contrast in light and dark - very much what the novel is about. It is quite a dated book now, but the imagery very simply and directly references the storyline, and the font used for the text is very appropriate as well given the medieval themes demonstrated throughout the book too. The only continuing design following from the front cover to the spine and then to the back cover are the illustrations on the top and bottom of the cover. The spine continues this but also fills in black as there doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to be a separation of imagery and text as it is all white to is clear on a black background. The imagery style

is consistent so it is very clear what the book is, and the font is also very clear and defined. It is quite a different spine to ones I have looked at before, but that could be to the age of the book compared to others. The back cover still keeps the consistent style we have seen, and although it is separated into blocks, it is done so in a different way to the front cover. I think it is probably done the way it is in order to keep the barcode black on white as otherwise, personally I would have thought to do most of it black with just a bit of white to keep in with the theme theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve set on the front and spine. It still suits the rest of the book cover, but the white is quite out of place when you compare it to the rest. However they still have the yellow panels at the top and bottom to match the rest of the design, and the use of black is still strong, but I thought the white takes away some of the impact it has on the other parts of the book.

Lord of the Rings Cover

Dan Brown’s Cover

an Brown’s books are also fictional, but more like To Kill a Mockingbird in the way that it is more about real life situations, but with characters instead of being based on real life people. The book covers are generally quite consistent for Dan Brown, with one image accompanied by the name and title in very big, capital lettered writing. The imagery used on the front cover does seem to instantly relate to the title of the novel and is done in a way that is very digital - hence the name - but aso mysterious as it shows a very well protected door to something, so the viewers wonder what is behind it, or behind the door to the book. Differently to the Lord of the Rings book cover, this one has a design across the front cover and the spine, but the back cover is very different. This still works very well, as although it is different in style, the dark background with white text works perfectly as an element of a mysterious, thriller based novel. The back cover is very heavily text oriented which is perfect to allow viewers to get an idea of what the book is about, but also makes the back cover slightly less appealing in the way that there isn’t imagery to make it easier to understand a bit about the book.

Although people looking at this will want to be able to read it, it is still good to have some kind of exciting placement of the text or some accompanying imagery so that if they are just flicking through books to read, it draws their attention quicker than reading each and every blurb. On the front of this book, there is a review to praise the author and the story he has created. Quite often this is found on the back cover, but to put it on the front cover makes the viewers of the book aware of what other people think of it before they actually pick it up and look at the rest of the books cover. Reviews and appraisal are important for authors to gain a reputation for good writing, so to display this along with the key parts - Author & title - is very clever and will certainly draw people’s attention. People care what others have to say, so if someone is giving praise to this book, then it makes them feel like they can rely on them.

h is novel is also a fictional thriller containing “real” characters as opposed to fantasy characters. Again they have used more photographic based design on the cover to show a character and a setting. However, the character has been blacked out with only certain features of their clothing on show to present the man as well-dressed. I think this is because characters aren’t demonstrated visually in books, not like they are in films, so they still want the readers to use their imagination to picture the character, but they still wanted to use him to demonstrate the story. The designer has repeated this image, but smaller on the spine to emphasise the style of the novel and to also make this a key feature. For people who keep it on their book shelf, it will be instantly recognisable due to the repetition of it on the front as well as on the spine. It is important in books to try and make it recognisable so that people will want to pick it up based on their knowledge of it. They have made the author’s first name smaller to make more room for the surname. I know the author is very well

known, so wonder if his surname is the part that people know best, so therefore made the most imporant feature. The title on the spine is a consistent size. It is interesting that the author’s name stands out more, I presume because he is a well known author, they have done this to draw people in as they know him well, then the title is the second most important part as he has written so many books. The back cover is much lighter than the rest of the design, using the same background as on the front cover, but without the characters figure being featured. This is so the blurb is very clear and not distracted by any other elements. It works well as it still has the imagery, but in a way to enhance the writing. At the bottom is a section about the author, which enhances what I thought for the spine that the advertising of the book is all based on the fact that the author is very well known, so they are using this to attract their audience.

I, Alex Cross Book Cover

50th Edition Book Cover

his 50th anniversary edition book cover for To Kill a Mockingbird has a very consistent style throughout all three sides of the cover. Throughout all of it, the light yellow background has been used with text / sillhouetted illustrations incorporated on top. Quite basic in style, this cover is very reflective of the storyline of the novel as the imagery / illustrations themselves actually relate to parts of the novel. The novel is told from the perspective of a child, and this cover presents a child on a tyre swing. Something that is also mentioned in the book. It is a lovely book design, and the style of writing really reflects the sinister themes shown throughout the novel. The novel itself is very gothic, but the cover is light in colour and the only sign of gothic styles would be from the chosen font. It effectively presents some key parts of the novel, but overall if I didn’t know anything about the novel, I woudn’t have thought it has gothic themes throughout and some very serious topics of racism in the 1930s. Despite this, it is still a very appealing book cover due to it’s unique elements and would still catch people’s attention through the wondering what each part means.

The spine is very similar to the front cover in the way that it includes the same main illustration and font. It is almost as it the front cover has been adapted to fit the spine. This still works well as when it’s on a book shelf, it can be immediately indentifiable as the book it is. The back cover is much less aesthetic in comparison to the front cover and the spine. The majority of the design is the text for the blurb, with only a small bit of illustration at the bottom of the page. The sillhouette at the bottom of the back page is different to that used on the front and spine and depicts a house that is likely to be the house the story is based in. It is quite a gothic looking scene due to the birds flying around it (reference to the mockingbird) and the loneliness of the house. Overall it is a nice book cover, but I think it could have added a lot of different elements to create the feel for the books genres and serious tone.

lthough still a fictional book, this one is also fantasy. This is instantly clear when you look at the book cover due to it’s fantastical characters being displayed on the front cover. This is the most different book cover I’ve looked at, it is packed with gloomy character illustrations which instantly tell a bit of a story and show the viewers what’s in store for them when they read the book. It is a very imaginative book cover, particularly as the novel itself will be completely out of the ordinary, someone has created what the author has written. The name of the author sits behind the illustrations as parts of the character overlap, which brings the design of the cover to life. Again, this cover has a review on the front page, so one of the first things the viewers will see. Similarly to James Patterson’s book cover, the hierarchy seems to be the authors name > the book title > review. This is because these two authors are very well known, so the chances are their name is more likely to draw their audience in. This is something I will need to consider when it comes to designing my book cover which is more important, the title or the author’s name?

The spine carries on the theme, but will only the front character being featured at the bottom of the spine. The title is very big and bold and would definitely stand out amongst a series of other books. The spine of Terry Pratchett’s books are all quite similar in the fantastical side of things, so this makes the design very distinguishable for those that love to read his books, particularly as this comes from a series of his most famous books. The back cover contains mainly text for the blurb, but again the character is featured in the bottom. This is obviously a very key character of the storyline as it is consistently in all the pages to emphasise the story within the book. It is a very sinister / scary looking character and the way it is portrayed would instantly make a viewer decide if this is the kind of book they want to read or not.

Fantasy Book Cover

Colour Meanings

hoosing a colour scheme has been quite difficult for me throughout this project. I have tended to go for the more obvious choicees given the book that I decided to do the cover for. Therefore I decided it best to look into the meanings behind colour and choose some that I think relate well to the meanings behind To Kill a Mockingbird. I have simply put together a list of key words I have found while researching colours. I think this is enough to give me an instant idea of which colours would suit my project. Instantly white stands out for the key word ‘purity’. Given my book is narrated by children, I think purity reflects this really well as the topics that are discussed are very serious and horrible, but the children are too young to fully understand it, so they are still very pure and hidden from these opinions and issues faced in their time. Blue doesn’t really relate to the story, which is frustating as it is the one I’ve used second most after red! But to me it is an academic colour, and since To Kill a Mockingbird is a heavily studied classic novel, I guess this is why I thought to use it for my experimentation.

Yellow is an interesting one. The word ‘optimism’ and ‘emotional strength’ seem to really reflect the novel as the father in the book is teaching his children good morals, and is always optimistic despite the situations he faces - such as representing a black man in the day and age it’s set seemed like a lost cause, but he did it anyway. Emotional strength is a very powerful meaning for the colour and it is encouraged throughout the novel. One of the negatives is the word ‘fear’ and this is quite a common emotion found in this book. The colour yellow seems to have a lot relating to the novel. Black is another obvious one that I have already used a lot of due to the term ‘coldness’ which is very evident in characters in this novel. All in all, I think I could use most of the basic colours to represent my book, but to avoid being obvious I think I can try and use the colour but make them brighter or bolder to make them seem less obvious.

RED Positive: Physical courage, strength, warmth, energy, basic survival, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;fight or flightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, stimulation, masculinity, excitement. Negative: Defiance, aggression, visual impact, strain. BLUE Positive: Intelligence, communication, trust, efficiency, serenity, duty, logic, coolness, reflection, calm. Negative: Coldness, aloofness, lack of emotion, unfriendliness. GREEN Positive: Harmony, balance, refreshment, universal love, rest, restoration, reassurance, equilibrium, peace.

Negative: Boredom, stagnation, blandness, enervation.

YELLOW Positive: Optimism, confidence, self-esteem, extraversion, emotional strength, friendliness, creativity. Negative: Irrationality, fear, emotional fragility, depression, anxiety BLACK Positive: Sophistication, glamour, security, emotional safety, efficiency, substance. Negative: Oppression, coldness, menace, heaviness. WHITE Positive: Hygiene, sterility, clarity, purity, cleanness, simplicity, sophistication, efficiency. Negative: Sterility, coldness, barriers, unfriendliness, elitism.

osef Muller Brockmann is a good designer to look at for the direction I want to take this project. I have put together a small mood board just of particular bits of design that inspire me for my book cover. One bit of feedback I’ve had is that there isn’t enough hierarchy in my designs, but this is something that Josef Muller-Brockmann does really well so I am looking at his abstract designs to get inspiration for my own and learn how to create successful hierarchy in my designs. He can be seen here using very bold writing and colours to demonstrate the typography in a really beautiful way. I love these designs, and they are defined as Swiss style, so that’s something I should definitely aim towards. Another element in the designs here - in the first two right hand examples - is the use of bitmapping images. This is something I have already started to play around with, and so it is good to see how an existing designer, particularly one I want to look at for other elements of the design has presented this. I like the use of two colours across one image, and the way he has used one side / one colour to lay the text over the top.

Josef Muller-Brockmann isn’t afraid of producing unconventional layouts and compositions, with his text in varying orientations in every piece of design. This is something I need to aim to not be afraid of doing in my own design as this will make the overall composition much more appealing and exciting to look at. I want a design that will instantly draw people in, and I personally feel that Josef’s work is a perfect example of design that does this. It is different, bold, vibrant and colourful and it is presented in a way that is not conventional but not completely crazy so it is still legible and the audience are easily able to understand what it is about. This is particularly due to his successful choices for hierarchy. The viewers instantly know which is the key part of the design, what it is about and what it is demonstrating. This is important in a book cover as you want the audience to have an idea of whether it is something that want to pick up and look further into.

Josef MullerBrockmann

Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.

“

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

To Kill a Mockingbird

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Typography I

n this project, I think the style of typography will be really important to associate with the book and enhance particular meanings and messages. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be good to choose a font that directly relates to something in the book. The fonts I have played around with here I have tried to give reason behind. The first 4 are serif fonts that look like theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be used in a newspaper or very documentary styled information. This is relevent due to the fact that the novel is based on a law case in the 1930s so a more old fashioned font seems to work. The next 4 are sans serif fonts which have a slightly art deco feel to them - which would have been a popular style around the time. This is more subtle

and would have to work with images to enhance this idea as they also look like fonts used day to day currently. The final three are handwritten styled fonts that emphasise the fact that the narrator in the book is a child. The final font is the most child like of them and so could work the most if I went from that kind of theme of a childs perception of whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going on around them.

Seminar 01

In the seminar, Tom wasn’t too sure about the idea and so asked what my strengths are in Graphic Design. When it was decided that I am best at creating textual layouts and composition for editorial design, he suggested looking at publications from the time that the novel is set (1930s) and changing the format of the novel completely, and into something such as a newspaper. My next step now is to research 1930s publications and experiment with the layout and composition with this in mind. It is a really interesting idea, although at this stage I can’t exactly picture how it could look.

MONDAY 25th SEPTEMBER 2017

or the first seminar of the year, I put together a very small experiment (see right) to demonstrate an idea. This is an initial idea - hence the stick man - but would be a more defined sillhouette of a child on the top and an adult below, representing Scout Finch (the narrator) and Tom Robinson (the victim in the story). I wanted to use black and white to demonstrate the racial discrimination in the book, but also use the opposite colours for the characters. Tom is a back man that would appear white with a black background and Scout would appear black in a white background. I thought this would demonstrate that everyone is the same, really and that the colour doesn’t make a difference which Scout comes to learn throughout the novel, watching the father representing him, an innocent man. The upside down idea is to look like a reflection of eachother. I’m not yet sure about this idea and it is just an initial experiment, but it has an interesting concept. I’m a bit worried about how to carry it out and how successful it could be.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

MONDAY 2nd OCTOBER 2017

Seminar 02 A

fter doing a bit of research into 1930s publications, I am really struggling for inspiration on my own design. I put together this newspaper-type design but I am really unhappy with it. It is not appealing in the slightest, but I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think of any way to make it more so. It sounded like a good idea to begin with, but I am starting to find newspapers extremely uninspiring. I thought about trying a magazine instead, but really a newspaper makes much more sense as the novel is about a court case, and a magazine wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t cover this type of thing so it feels wrong to try it. In the seminar, with nothing I was proud of to show, Tom came to me afterwards

and we decided to move away from this completely, stop overthinking the meaning and do something because it looks good. I thought I could experiment with typography & colour, and I was shown an example of an ex-students work where they have laser cut holes into a book cover to show colour below that represents the books title and context within it. This is a beautiful idea and has made me more excited for the possibilities.

Experiment Set 01 F

ollowing on from our second seminar, with a change in direction I thought it best to try and do a very wide range of experiments - almost the same as what we did for the typographic experiments project in the first year - to hopefully come up with a design that I want to pursue and use as a final design. I am trying to keep to a very minimal colour palette using black and red (and maybe 1 other colour) as these have been most common in my research and also I think represent the story very well. These designs are very basic typography which has been laid out in abstract, unconventional ways. The problem I am having so far is trying

to think of the meaning behind the typography looking the way it does, which I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think will matter as such but I would like to include at least a bit of meaning and complexity behind the final design I choose. I quite like the colour palette as it is very striking and even when the typography goes off the page, it ensures that the type is legible for the reader. I find them a bit boring for a book cover as they look more like a graphical piece for a poster rather than something someone would choose to buy, read and store as a design on their book shelf, however it is also hard to see on a flat design like this how it will look.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

fter my first set of experiments I decided to try a different type of layout, so rather than overly large and going off the composition, I am focussing more on the text itself. I have experimented with layout, size and also layering, but in the middle I have tried creating my own font. This was quite interesting, but it didn’t come out quite as I planned as it isn’t as legible as I had intended it to be. However, I’m not sure if it necessarily needs to be legible to work well. The rest of the experiments are all manipulated and laid out in ways that make it appear abstract. I quite like some of the layouts I have done here, but not enough to work well as a book

cover design. They are a bit too simplistic in composition that I think it isn’t enough to attract an audience to want to pick up a book and look at it. I also feel it doesn’t exactly tell a story at all to make the viewers / potential audience relate to it and understand it in terms of the very famous novel itself. I like the use of negative space, but don’t think it has the same aesthetically pleasing effect on book covers as it does in other areas of design. It is still good for me to experiment with these features to make sure I know what / how I want my book cover to look. I think I need to try and fill the page more and experiment further with an abstract and exciting look to typography.

Experiment Set 02

Experiment Set 03 F

ollowing on from my last set of experiments, I have moved on to experiments that take up more of the composition. I hate the top three experiments. I decided that the second I stopped creating them. There’s nothing aesthetically pleasing about them at all and they are way too over the top. I wouldn’t pick a book up if it looked like that. So, following from these, I decided to work with the main quote from the book and enhance the title of the book within this quote. I like this idea, but I don’t think I have created it successfully. Some of them are interesting designs, but nothing that makes me think “that’s the one!”. Again, they don’t look like they’d

be book covers to me, but rather a very small piece of graphic design that might be found elsewhere. I could maybe play around with this concept and see if I can delve deeper into the idea to make it more successful and give it the “wow” I want, but at the moment I am struggling for inspiration on how I could do this. I could consider other materials and mediums to do this such as laser cutting or adding a sleeve to the book, but given the time we have I think I need to decide on a cover that ‘WOWs’ the viewer’s in an easy way, using the power of graphic design.

’S A SIN , IT GB N I

T ALL THE BLU E OO JA Y SH

Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird

Harper Lee

O KI GT RD

WANT, IF Y OU OU Y S

T ALL THE BLU E OO JA Y SH

O KI GT RD

’S A SIN , IT GB N I

U WANT, IF YO O U SY

AM LL

REMEMBER UT

N HIT ‘EM, B CA

KI OC

REMEMBER UT

Harper Lee

AM LL

KI OC

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

N HIT ‘EM, B CA

harper lee

sing a technique on Illustrator to create ink splats, I have experimented with incorporating this idea with typography. I am much more fond of these ideas as they are exciting, aesthetically pleasing and make the typography so much more itneresting to look at. However, the splats are kind of an obvious idea for a book about murder and court cases. I like the font used for the top three as it is a font that is similar to that found on typewriters. Due to the time this book is set and the fact that there is a narrator, the idea of a typewriter font works really well as it depicts telling a story, which this book is all about. It tells a very powerful story all the way through.

I have stuck to a strict colour palette of black, white and red which I think accurately represent the themes throughout the book. The book is about racial segregation (hence the black and white colours) and murder, betrayal so the use of red. Again, however, I am concerned that this is a bit too obvious. These colours quite obviously represent the book, in a way that is not unique and might actually seem to be quite lazy, which is not what I want to present for this project. While I really like the way these colours look together, I think at some point I will need to consider using others, or at least adding others to this current colour scheme.

Experiment Set 04

Experiment Set 05 U

sing exactly the same designs as before, I have switched the colour palette around a bit to have a black background with white text, while continuing to use the red in other places. I think this has a much more striking look to it and is definitely something that represents the dark, gothic themes of the novel. I think it makes it instantly more appealing and definitely something that people would pick up out of curiosity for what the book is about. My concern with this particular style is then, how dark does it look. Although the novel has very serious topics throughout, this kind of design makes it seem almost distopian in look, which the book is most definitely

not. It makes the book seem much gorier then it is due to the masses of red splats displayed on the composition, and the black is very overwhelming. Although I prefer how this looks, I think the white background would have worked better to depict the innocence of the narrators, the children in the novel who are looking at the storyline through young, naive eyes, who donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t yet understand the prejudice of their time. This design implies much more darkness than the story actually holds, so I fear that it is a bit misleading, again something I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to create throughout this project. I want it to do justice to the classic story it is holding inside.

harper lee

r ying to get away from the obvious and think more about different compositions and adding an alternative colour to the mix, I came up with this series of experiments. Again, these are designs I actually really like and think they would work well as book covers, but just not for the book I am designing them for. The first thing that came to mind when I stood back and looked at these away from designing them was “The Hunger Games”. Again it reminds me of a very distopian, us against the world kind of storyline, and doesn’t seem to have any relation to the book itself. I need to think more about what the book says and use that to create a design

that perfectly fits the novel I have chosen to design for as well as being aesthetically pleasing. This is becoming harder than I initially thought it would, as it is very easy to just design something, but it’s difficult to bring it back to it’s meaning and it’s core. What it’s about it the most important thing to reference / depict in a book cover as it’s the first thing people will see, but particularly for a classic book like this where a lot of people will already have knowledge on it.

Experiment Set 06

Experiment Set 07 T

h inking more into the story, I decided to experiment with using my own handwriting to create a cover. This relates to the idea that the novel is from the perspective of the children and so has a personal touch to it, as well as a slightly messier ideal. I liked the idea, but the execution was not good and these don’t look in the slightest bit appealing. They look messy and as though they have no thought or meaning behind them at all. It looks like something has written the book title on a piece of paper out of boredom, not someone that has created a piece of graphic design to advertise / depict the story of very classic novel, in the aim of getting people to pick it up and

read it. I am instantly going to move away from this idea as it isn’t successful at all. I could try and find existing handwritten fonts which could be neater, but I just think it’s a dead-end idea and there’s not very much I can do with it to make it a beautfully crafted book cover. It doesn’t do the story the justice is deserves.

To Kill a Mockingbird i

Harper Leee

To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird i

oving away from my handwritten idea, I decided to return to the ink splat style I had worked on previously. This time not covering the typography with splats, but using them as two separate elements to the design of the cover. These are quite nice to look at, but they are very simple. A bit too simple. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nothing really there to excite a viewer enough to pick up the book, and nothing to make them wonder what the rest of the book cover looks like. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a nice, simple piece of graphic design but it is missing all the meaning and power behind the novel. So far I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel like I am creating anything that is really making me excited about it. I have read and

enjoyed the book, but thinking of how to demonstrate it in a new and refreshing way compared to the book covers that already exist is proving to be very difficult. I need to now think completely away from these particular designs and think of something new. I have done plenty of iterations for this particular initial idea, but I now need to stop and think of other meanings behind the novel that I can display in the cover.

Experiment Set 08

To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Harper Lee

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Harper Lee

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD Harper Lee

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Harper Lee

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Harper Lee

ue to a couple of quotes relating to a hand, I decided to play on this for my next set of experiments. I created these designs by image tracing a handprint on illustrator and editting the lines to create this abstract look. I really like the way these look due to the fact that they blend in to the background, so it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a clearly defined hand, but something that is visable and abstract for the viewers to look closer into to try and work out. The thing I have struggled with for this design is the typography. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not sure the experiments look right with the typography, as though it lets the whole thing down. But then, I want the typography to be legible and not distract

from the rest of the composition. I need to have a think about how to do this, but I think I am going in a direction I am now happy with and happy to show in the next seminar in class. The colours look really good in this, but again I face the same problem that they could be very obvious choices, so perhaps I will be told to move away from this for the future of the project. I think I should try and make the typography almost as abstract as the hands to make it stand out more, but at present I am struggling to see how I can do this without making it a bit too much in one place.

Experiment Set 09 & 10

Experiment Set 11 B

efore our third seminar, I decided to play around with one final idea to show Tom. This time, using the same style and method as the hand, I decided to play around with an eye. This relates to perspective, particularly the perspective of the children who are the narrators of the book. The book is looking at the situation through their innocent eyes. I like the style of this one as it is again very abstract. I’m not sure if it’s particularly obvious that the image is an eye, but that could be a positive as it creates a sense of mystery to the design, which is an interesting feature to have. Again the typography was a difficult element of this design, but I think the most successful is having the type in

the centre of the eye as it ensure the text is legible for the readers, and it is literally ‘in the eye’ of the book. I have still stuck to the same colour paletter as I just think it works really well and looks good, but I am regretting not experimenting with different colours at this stage as this is probably what is missing from my experimentations and something I should definitely think more into.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Harper Lee

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Harper Lee

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Harper Lee

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD Harper Lee

T M

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.â&#x20AC;?

MONDAY 9th OCTOBER 2017

In the third seminar, I showed my group and Tom the series of experiments including the ones with the hand and eyes. They said that these were the most successful, but the hand is definitely better. However, the typography is letting it down so I need to play around with that.

and experimenting with other colours. I need to think of colours that accurately represent the book for it to work well.

With the kind of design I have chosen to do, it is important to have some kind of clear division and segments between the imagery and the typography to keep each of them equally as important and as appealing to the viewers and audience. At the moment, the typography is lost in a complex design and needs to be brought forward and more obvious.

•

Another piece of feedback is to not image trace the hand, and use bitmapping techniques to try and have a less digital looking final outcome. Tom has suggested layering with colours. I am really happy with this feedback as although I liked the outcome, I did too feel like something was missing and this has helped me realise what I need to do now to make it a refined piece. He also suggested zooming in much more into the hand so that it almost isn’t recognisable as a hand,

My to do list after this seminar: •

• • • •

•

Experiment more with different colours other than red and black Play more with text / typography as it isn’t working as it is now Separate text with blocks of colour Zoom into the hand further to create a more abstract appearance Designate space for text / imagery separately so they’re clear - maybe try using the penguin book cover grid Work on typography accompanying the image so it looks better - Joseph Muller-Brockman will be a good person to look into Make hand look less digital by bitmapping and layering that way

Seminar 03

ased on feedback from the third seminar, I have started to bitmap a handprint to move away from the digital look of my previous experiments. Another thing I need to focus on is experimenting with different colours as, as I suspected, the red, white and black are too obvious for the story I have chosen to do. Just for my sake, I have create the hand in most colour I could think of, as well as combining them with layers of two different colours. I did this to create a more abstract look, which is what I am aiming for in my design. I really like the way this looks, actually particularly as it works well to make a very detailed picture look more abstract and interesting than it would if it were just in itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s normal state. The texture

it creates will also work really nicely with block colours on compositions, so I am excited to see what I can do with this. The layering looks interesting too, almost like it is distorted, or trying to get the 3D green / red look before you put on the 3D glasses. However, when itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blown up larger, this might become hard to look at due to the double layering. But, that said, I am ready to experiment with this further and see where it takes my book cover design. I can definitely understand why Tom suggested moving away from the digital look from before, this looks much more exciting and real-life and I think it could potentially work really well on a book cover.

Bitmapping

Cover Layouts A

fter the seminar and moving away from the digital look I was creating before, I have started to put together some designs using the bitmapping style of hand and working on improving the typography to make the overall composition much more exciting and appealing to the audience. I started off by using the penguin grid to incorporate the text into the cover. I thought this was a really nice idea to take it back to the history of Penguin, but I just really hate the way it looks with my design. It looks too academic, like a research book youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d buy at school

which is not what I was aiming for in my design. I want something that is much more exciting than that, and using the Penguin grid took that away. I really like the close up of the hand, so I carried on experimenting with that with various other styles for the typography. I am glad I experimented with the Penguin grid anyway as it shows the relation to the publishers and their history and also a way of keeping in touch with the novel itself. It is a Penguin classic, and therefore using the Penguin grid in theory was a good idea. I used a two-tone bitmap for the hand which is why there are bits of black

I think the last design on here is one I’d like to persue. I’m not 100% sure about the font, but I feel like it suits the storyline, whether that’s because it looks like a more old-fashioned font to some I’ve used or if it just has a bit more character, I’m not too sure, but something about it seems to fit to me. For the left two on this page I layered a smaller version of the hand in a different colour. This is okay but it isn’t particularly obvious and doesn’t really make the design better, so I think I am happy to drop that from the design. With this in mind, I think I am overthinking it too much and actually it doesn’t need to many different elements to look appealing. The last one here is just one image of the hand with the text and I think it is the most successful. I now need to think about the spine and back cover of the book as I have spent way too long doing this and not enough time working on the other elements. I am happy with the direction I am taking it, however so it will be good fun to progress further.

and blue evident in the design. I like this as it makes it much more interesting than if there was just one colour. After experimenting with the Penguin grid, I moved onto try different, more abstract looking typographic layouts. I was quite keen to try having the title on it’s side as this is something I haven’t really seen done on book covers before. On the left page, I have done two with quite unique layouts with the author’s name as well. I like the two layouts on the side and the large font works quite well to make the title clear against the imagery. I’m not too sure about the splats. To be honest, I just put them there because I liked using them in previous experiments, but in this particular design they don’t really add anything that impacts the look of the design. I have tried the writing on the side again on this page but using a smaller font which I think works reasonably well, but feels like there’s too much space around it that could be used better in a different way. I think the writing on the side looks quite good on some of them, but still feels like something is missing.

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ow after creating some front cover layouts I am happy with, we need to put together some professional quality pitches that could be shown to clients. My first one is based on the last of my experiments. However, I have made the hand stretch across the front, spine and back of the book cover. The first issue I faced was making sure the type on the back for the blurb was legible, so I put a gradient over the top of the hand image to make the back darker so I could put the text over the top without worrying people won’t be able to read it. ’m not too sure how I feel about this design. I really like the large hand, but something feels off about the overall look of the design. I tend to feel much better about the design when I look at it in the mock up form as it gives it a realistic feel, how it might actually look if it were to be created as an actual cover and how it would look if advertised or put on a book shelf. To me, the mock up looks better than the flat design, but still you can’t see all of it on the mock up so I need to move something around to make it more appealing. Perhaps its the shading of the

back that I don’t feel works so well. I am still going to pass this over to Tom to look at as he will be able to give me feedback on this for me to move forward. I have struggled with the spine a bit, as due to the lightness of the hand going across, I am limited for space to put the author’s name and title. While it looks okay as it is, this isn’t the kind of design that would stand out to someone if put into a busy book shelf surrounded by other books. It needs to instantly be recognisable as the book it is, so I need to work on getting it larger without making it less legible for the viewers. I do like the colours of this design, it is very different to the red, black and white I was using in my earlier experiments, but I’m not entirely sure how it fits with my chosen book. It definitely represents the darkness of the storyline, but doesn’t have any particular psychological characteristics that compliment the themes demonstrated within the novel.

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Professional Pitch Idea 01

Professional Pitch Idea 02

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or my next pitch, I decided to strip all of the colour from the design and stick to black and white. My initial ideas at the very beginning were to keep it black and white due to the racial connotations throughout, so I decided to throw one in there that resembled this. Although I really like the hand going across all three parts of the cover, I have tried to experiment with making each section different so that the text can be better seen for the viewers.

covers out there already and it makes the back look very basic.

For the title of the book on the front cover, I have gone back to a more basic font than the previous one, just to see how it would look in this design. It looks okay, but takes a bit of the excitement out, and with the lack of colour looks quite academic and boring. I think I am struggling a bit with the typography and layout of the text within the composition but I am also struggling to get inspiration I quite like how this one looks, and for how to improve it and make it more incorporating the hand but smaller on exciting than what I’ve produced so far. I the back cover looks quite sinister, but think I am overthinking it way too much it doesn’t feel like a cover for To Kill a and that if I just let myself naturally create Mockingbird to me. However, I still like the things wihtout putting too much thought way it looks and so no harm in submitting into it, it’ll likely be more successful. Will it as one of my professional pitch ideas. see what the feedback is, but I’m not sure either of these so far are winners for I don’t feel like I have been as creative for my final book cover design, but for the the back cover and spine as I have for the imagery / design side of things I am quite front cover, so hopefully when I receive happy, it’s just the typography I need to feedback for this it will help me work in work on. a particular direction to make this more appealing and successful. At the moment, it is just basic text, centrally aligned which isn’t particularly unique or exciting as it has been done on most existing book

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he final design on my PDF I am going to submit for this pitch is a lot lighter than the previous designs. This time I have used white with blue imagery. I think this is quite a nice design, and through research learnt that white represents purity, and this seems quite evident despite the obscure looking hand in the composition. While I do like the way this composition looks, and I love the meaning behind the white, I think it could be quite a boring looking book cover. It isn’t packed with excitement or features that make me think that’s the one. I like the small hand being used almost like an icon or logo for the novel as it could be used as a recognisable feature for my particular design, but I don’t think it’s enough to make the composition exciting or worthy of being used for such a classic book.

It will be interesting to see what Tom has to say about these designs. I like them, but I’m not overwhelmed by the overall look I have created. I think it is missing something, and hopefully this feedback will help to enlighten me on what I can do to make the cover everything I am hoping it will be.

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Professional Pitch Idea 03

We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.

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“

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fter submitting my PDF with the three pitch ideas to the Google classroom, I received some quick feedback for me to think about when I go on to continue with these ideas and develop them further. “Getting there Holly but the type on the back really isnt working - you need to not centre it in the first instance - look at some examples of book backs for inspiration.” I am actually glad that I got this feedback as it is pretty much how I was feeling about the design anyway. I hadn’t thought of the centre justified text as being the issue, but now it has been said I can completely see this as being a bad design choice and to experiment with other layout ideas. With this feedback, I am now happy to continue through with this design. I knew something was

missing, and hopefully I will be able to work on the design well enough to ensure that the design works well to wow the audience and make people want to pick it up and view it. At this point, I’ve also realised I haven’t added in the bar code or price which is part of the book itself, so I need to do this as well as change the design around a bit. I’m not 100% sure what I will do to improve the back cover, but looking into other book designs is a start for inspiration, so I will start there and come back to it afterwards. I am feeling okay about my designs, but I am hoping I will be able to get inspiration that makes me feel more excited about the project again, as I was starting to lose it a bit then when I was pretty much doing the same thing over and over again.

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New Layouts & Feedback W

ith the feedback given to me based on my pitch ideas, I have worked more on the back cover and spine of the designs whilst also trying to make the front cover more aesthetically pleasing. I have changed the composition of the hand around so that I am able to put some text next to the image on the back page, and make it ever so slightly more obvious that it is a hand. My favourites out of these new designs are the two darker ones with the dark hand over the top as you can still see the hand, but it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;in-your-faceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; as I had it before. It is discreet, but in a good way that makes

the viewers want / need to look in closer to make out what it is being displayed. With these ideas created, I reached a bit of a dead end for my inspiration and ideas. Therefore I thought it best to discuss what I have done so far with Tom and think about what I can do now. I wanted to show all of the experiments I have done, but with most focus on the last two as these are the ones I personally feel are the most successful. I know in my gut that this is not the finished piece, and not even nearly and I will probably get bad feedback or told to change it, but I need this now to continue happily for the rest of the project.

It does not need to be a perfectly structured looking book cover, I can go completely crazy with the idea. I need to move away from the colours and go completely abstract and wacky in comparison. This is where my research into colours will come in most handy as I can use the brighter ones to reflect meaning from the book but also to make the design look better and more exciting.

Tom explained that I can take key elements of the book cover and move them around in a way that is unconentional and really go for the abstract I initially said I was going to try. I seem to have made the image abstract, but gone shy about it when it comes to adding in the text. He wasn’t sure about the font I’ve used for the title, but as an example he blew the text up much larger and it actually looked a lot better this way. So, for the rest of the project I am going to play around with any idea that comes to mind whether it seems completely insane or not. I think I have been thinking too structured and now I need to let me creativity flow freely and produce something that is completely unique and would stand out miles away from other books. It doesn’t have to look like it is about To Kill a Mockingbird necessarily like the existing covers do, but as long as there is some meaning to it.

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As I thought, and knew was going to happen, Tom and I decided to change the way it looks. The concesus was that it is okay, but it is really missing something. When asked ‘why the hand’ I explained the quotes I found in the book relating to it, and while that made sense, it still didn’t seem clear in the cover. Therefore, I should keep it in there, but make it even more abstract in a way that it is a smaller feature of the book cover. He suggested changing the orientation of the text on the back cover and blowing up the title on the front. Simple things that will make my composition much more exciting. At the moment I am stuck in a neat box of keeping everything in a particular way, but I need to be more free about the design.

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Final Design Iterations they’re features that I like from several ideas.

The last two designs are probably the most different due to the dual colour scheme. This idea came from Josef Muller Brockmann’s work and I tried to use it to make a unique look for the cover. Also inspired by Josef Muller-Brockmann I really thought about the hierarchy. Although Harper Lee is a very famous author, I think she is more well known for this particular book, and it is such a famous book that even if you haven’t read it, you know of it. So therefore, for my I am quite pleased with which ones people design I decided to make the title of the said were their favourite as I think out of book the largest element in the hierarchy. all of them, they are probably mine too. This is so that people can instantly see it is It’s interesting that no one at all chose the the classic, well known novel and not only orange ones, which is absolutely fine as encourage them to pick it up for that, but I only added it to the mix to see how an due to the completely different, modern alternative option would look. Yellow & style I have created here, pick it up simply pink are definitely the more liked colours, because it is such a different presentation and now I just need to choose which of an old known story. ones to carry on with and create as a final outcome. Even though these are quite abstract designs, I have made sure that there is While it is good that I have created such a some consistency and thought put into wide range of variations for this, it is now exactly where bits sit. For example, I made making life much harder to decide how sure the top of the main body text of the to approach the actual final piece. There’s blurb was in line with the top bit of the title lots of bits I like from different ones, so in the blurb which is inline with a word on perhaps I could just combine my favourite the main page. I also made sure the title features into my final design, but it’s just and author name were in line as often as I doing this in a way that makes the design could. Even if I haven’t done this on some successful and appealing and ensuring of them, I will ensure I do this for the final each element actually does work together, one. not just being put together because

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ow coming towards the end of this project, I need to stop creating iterations for designs and actually think about narrowing down and finalising one in particular. It has been easy to get carried away with so many different variations of this new direction I have taken, so I have decided to stop while I am still moderately happy with the work. First of all I decided to ask other people if there were any they particularly like. I have put tally’s next to the iterations people have chosen so I can see which are the favourites and decide how to continue.

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Choosing Final Design I

n order to try and decide which design to continue with for my final piece I decided to put the most chosen designs into a mockup so I am able to see how they would look if they were actually produced as book covers. This time I have decided to use a mockup that includes the spine as it was hard to image how it would look in my previous designs. It is so much nicer to see how the design would look as an entire book rather than a flat template, so this has been very helpful. I can also see a few immediate issues which I would need to address if I choose those particular designs. I have put a cross next to the

two issues and they are: 1 for this design there is a review on the front in white but on this mockup you can’t see it at all. This is not what I wanted to happen in my designs. The second one, similarly is white text that cannot be seen on the yellow colour I chose to experiment with. This is a shame as I didn’t want to have just black writing over the top of the yellow, but then it could also just be the mockups that aren’t displaying it very well. Since this is a project that doesn’t necessarily require a printed final piece, I need to atleast make sure the mockup looks as good as I can possibly get it to, which means I need to

concentrate on removing all of these small errors even if they might not necessarily be an issue on print. I am still quite stuck for which design to continue as my final piece. Although they all have different features, they’re quite similar in the way I have presented them. The most different are the last two with two block colours going across the front cover. These appeal to me more as they are something that you wouldn’t usually see on a book cover design and that is what I am aiming for with my final outcome. I want it to be something that instantly draws someones attention to it and looks unique compared to any of the other books around it. Despite a couple of people liking the second one on the left and saying it is striking and stood out the most, someone also made a good point that for people that haven’t heard of this novel, it might be confusing for them. This cover would be good on the basis that everyone possibly looking at this cover would instantly know the book, which of course can never be guaranteed. Therefore I think I can take that one off my

list, however I could take specific elements of it and put it into which ever one I choose as my final piece. I was worried that the hierarchy on the cover would be lost if I used white for the font, but actually I think it works well because the author’s name is very small at the bottom, and the barcode is instantly obvious as a barcode, so although I have made it a feature, it won’t make people stop reading the main title of the cover. I think I am going to take this feature by feature in order to create the final piece. Instead of looking at them as whole, completed designs, I am going to pick out which bits I like the most and put together a completed design using this method. I have done something different with each of them, and as I’m not looking at any of them as if they are the design I want to present as my final piece, I think this is the most effective way. I also think this will help me to speed up the process as it is taking too long to just look and hope an idea will just pop out at me.

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reaking down the features I have created in my designs has really helped me to decide what I want to include in my final outcome. Now I know which bits are most successful, whether this was chosen by myself and my personal preferences, or preferences of a friend that I’ve asked. I have put together a small moodboard of the bits I think are the most successful and what I wish to use for the final outcome. To begin with, I am going to stick to the bright yellow and red/pink colour scheme as this is the most popular when I’ve asked people which ones they like, and I also think they are beautiful, vibrant and striking colours which would undoubtedly draw someone into viewing it. All of the other elements I have selected will be easy to put together, and I am now getting very excited to see how these ideas fall into place.

Although I have shown the features and elements visually, for my own benefit I have listed which bits I am going to continue in my final design: • •

• • • •

Curled / serif font for the title because it contrasts the fonts used for every Crossed text for the quote from the book top left of back page, rest of writing on side in the middle in line with spine title Barcode on the front page / off the page All caps title and author on spine. Bold / clear Could try black font for cover so it stands out more?? Lighter image of hand so it isn’t too distracting.

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Key Final Features

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fter a long time of putting together several variations of the design, I think I finally have one that I am happy to present as my final outcome. I think breaking each of my ideas down and considering different elements I’d like to see in my final piece worked well as opposed to trying to look at the full designs I had created as it was hard to pick one as there were lots of little bits I liked and other people picked up on from each design. There wasn’t one whole one that I or someone else liked most. I started with the idea of using the yellow & pink design but with black title as it was becoming hard to read the white text over the yellow background, but something about it just wasn’t right and didn’t have the same impact I was hoping for in my mind. Then I tried it again with

slightly different elements to see if it could still work better, but again it felt off to me. I asked a couple of people what they thought was missing and someone suggested making it completely yellow again to have a complete contrast. I did this and it did look much better. It didn’t have the same unique look as the dual colour ones, but it was easier to read and still as striking. I changed the hand in the background to be white as I did like the inclusion of that colour, and this way it is more subtle but still as effective. I don’t want to spend too much time doing loads of iterations on this now as it overcomplicates things to have too many ideas, so I will complete my design with this particular style and decision.

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Initial Final Design

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Updated Final Design H

aving had quite a disappointing interim deadline and feedback, finding out that I wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t quite at the grade I had hoped due to my final outcome, I decided to come back to the design and see what I could do to change it. However, although I know I am not happy with the way it looks, I also donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really know what to do to improve it in a short space of time. I could go with my ideas of adding laser cutting or something something more exciting with the design, but then I will be wasting valuable time of the next project that I could use to bump up my entire project. Therefore, I went less is more and decided to change the colour of the spine and back cover. This is only a very small change, but I think it makes the design stand out much more and it shows the light / dark sides to the story within the book. I did quite like the

use of the barcode on the front page and the different orientation of all the text throughout, so I decided to keep it despite not getting great feedback. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think I have created a bad design, but my indecisiveness let me down and there was a lot of time throughout the project that I could have spent really refining and making one idea look amazing, but instead I jumped back and forth with ideas and ended up working on a last minute design. That said, I find it quite a nice, typographic book cover that is very different to what you might see elsewhere.

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The Meaning Behind H

but then I will be wasting valuable time of the next project that I could use to bump up my entire project. Therefore, I went less is more and decided to change the colour of the spine and back cover. This is only a very small change, but I think it makes the design stand out much more and it shows the light / dark sides to the story within the book. I did quite like the use of the barcode on the front page and the different orientation of all the text throughout, so I decided to keep it

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128mm

198mm

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My Final Outcome My final outcome front and back covers are 128mm x 198mm each (as specified in the Penguin Brief) and I would want the cover to be printed on a matte paper so there is no shine and it can really enhance the contrast between the yellow and the black.

137 WHAT IS THE MEANING BEHIND THE COVER DESIGN I HAVE CHOSEN? I have really tried to think of the meaning behind my final piece as I’ve gone along as I was worried when I changed the style to be completely abstract and modern that it would lose meaning. The hand I have explained as relating to several quotes about hands in the novel, but particularly the one about showing a man isn’t brave if he has a gun in his hand. The book is about life lessons from a father to his children, and so their future and the fate of their opinions is in his hands.

father share throughout the book, and the emotional strength they give eachother. These two colours contrast physically in looks and symbolically to the black which relates to coldness. This is what is shown by the other people of the book, which they fight throughout.

The barcode, at first I didn’t think anything of, but when I made it a feature of the cover, I thought it could relate to imprisonment with the numbers (i.e. having no identity when you’re a prisoner) The hand is in white to represent the purity as well as the bars that make the code. It’s of the children in this novel. They don’t quite nice to make the bar code a feature understand the prejudice in the world at as it would usually just be a sandard, the time this is set. This is complimented boring element that has now been by the bright yellow to symbolise brought to life. optimism that the children and their

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Part 01 Evaluation O

verall I think I am very happy with how this project turned out. It took a lot of direction changes and a bit of a push to come out of my comfort zone, but I eventually did and I have produced a unique, vibrant book cover. There are a lot of things I wish I had done differently or experimented with, but given the time we had to do this, I am glad I stuck to creating one single book cover instead of trying to over work myself with different elements. However, even with the extra time after the interim deadline I still decided to only make small adjustments I am able to concentrate more on the next project.

If I were to do anything differently, I would liked to have done something with the laser cutter. I think it would have been very exciting to experiment with the hand print I created on the laser cutting and using the colours I have chosen to make a physically exciting book cover as well as aesthetically. Because I had such a hard time coming up with concepts, though, I am glad I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t try to do something too difficult like this, particularly as it hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been a very long project to complete. In the future, perhaps this is something I can come back to and experiment with to create something more advanced.

139 What would I change about the current design? I think I could have played around with more layouts, but I was so stuck in the first idea I had that I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really think of doing a design that was completely abstract and different until the week of the deadline and I was told to. I think that has been a bit of a weakness for me in this project; not being able to just go crazy with ideas and waiting to be told what to do. I think for future projects I will just roll with whatever ideas come to mind regardless of whether I think they are too insane or not. Just sitting down with Tom for 5 minutes he instantly had several great ideas that I could have thought of if I hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been stuck in a cycle of one specific idea. Had I thought deeper into the design earlier, I probably could have had more time to

explore different and more abstract styles to create something exactly the way I wanted. Something else I should have thought of was actually printing out the design on particular paper types. I wanted to do this completely digitally for now and focus on the design rather than printing, but I now feel like I could have benefited from seeing the design on paper types that I thought might be very successful for the particular kind of design I have gone for. I do think matte paper will be the nicest as the two main colours I have chosen need to be very bold, clear and vibrant and I think matte paper would do this well, particularly as it seems to make black appear extremely black more than normal or other paper types.

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External Context Part 02

Chapter 01 CHAPTER ONE: THE BRIEF Page 143 YCN Competition Brief Grown Up Chocolate Company Target Audience

Chapter 02 CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH Page 151

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Initial Inspiration Moodboard High End Chocolate Moodboard Free-From Chocolate Moodboard Healthy Snacks Moodboard Q&A With a Vegan

Chapter 03 CHAPTER THREE: DESIGN PROCESS Page 163 Design Phase 01 Design Phase 02 Design Phase 03 Templates Final Design

Chapter 04 CHAPTER FOUR: EVALUATION Page 201

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The Brief Clients T

he Grown Up Chocolate Company are a chocolate brand that pride themselves on their handmade chocolate that is inspired by famous chocolate people ate as children. Despite it being inspired by adult’s childhood, it is aimed only at adults and repeatedly states, that it is ‘not for you kids’. They have a very unique brand style that undeniably sets them apart from other chocolate brands, but personally - from a design point of view - it isn’t very aesthetically pleasing. However, that said, I bought some of their chocolates to try / see the packaging and my mum and sister both really liked the packaging for chocolate, so perhaps it’s just a designer issue. Their big bold coloured typography alongside their black and white photographs of children dressing up as adults makes their designs instantly recognisable, which is a very good thing. However, I can see this becoming a bit of a pain and nuesance when it comes

to designing the new range. The logo is very basic with all capital letters depicting the name of the company. There is nothing particularly spectacular about the logo and it doesn’t make me think wow when I see it. This will also become an annoyance when I begin to design as it isn’t a logo that can easily be shrunk down and will likely be limited to certain styles that go well with it. The majority of their chocolates are actually bite-size rather than chocolate bars which is something I think I’d like to think of more when it comes to designing a new range. The chocolates that I tried of theirs were actually very nice. I wouldn’t have said they felt particularly ‘high-end’, despite the price they are selling them for, but they did taste good.

The Grown Up Chocolate Company Create a new identity for the Grown Up Chocolate Company’s new ‘free from’ range of deliciously decadent handmade bars.

146 Website — thegrownupchocolatecompany.co.uk

YCN Student Awards 2017/18

Social — Twitter: @grownupchocs Instagram: @grownupchocolate

ycn.org

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Initial Feelings W

ith my initial notes on the competition brief put together and a little research into the brand itself, I am feeling quite excited to take what is quite a basic looking brand and turn it into a new, exciting and also healthy range. I am already aware there will be a lot of challenges along the way as there are certain restrictions such as the brand logo, packaging and also that the range is for vegan, nut free & dairy free chocolates, the type of food I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have all that much knowledge on. But, I do feel this will be a good challenge as I havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t done any packaging design before this and I have wanted to in the past.

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Initial Inspirations

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High End Chocolate Brands Approximately ÂŁ2 & above

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“FreeFrom” Chocolate

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Healthy Snacks

Talking to a Vegan R

ealising I don’t actually know that much about vegans and what they would want to see in the product design, I decided to talk to my friend who has been a vegan for over a year now. This has been helpful to give me an insight into what I should and shouldn’t do.

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> First of all, are there any current vegan chocolate brands / snack brands that you like and think work really well to promote themselves as a vegan brand? Moo Free is great at promoting as a Vegan chocolate brand – mostly due to their name and I think they are registered Vegan too! As for snacks the crisp brand Eat Real that do the quinoa chips and hummus chips are really working well to promote themselves. > Would you prefer to buy a vegan chocolate bar that just looks like any other brand but with small info that it’s vegan or would you rather it expresses it quite clearly? I’d personally prefer to buy a chocolate bar that isn’t highly advertised as being vegan because it can seem a bit off putting and usually if it doesn’t state clearly that its marketed at vegans its usually cheaper – like Bournville chocolate, things like that. > What are current brands doing successfully and are there any that you find poorly represent a vegan brand?

Not so much a brand but Tesco and Sainsburys free from sections are doing really well in bringing out innovative vegan products in the last few months like tesco having dairy free and nut free chocolate buttons and honeycomb chocolate too. As not a massive sweet eater I don’t think ive personally seen brands that are poorly representing the vegan brand! > What symbol would you think resembles vegan food that could be used to show that the chocolate is vegan? Are there any you’ve seen that aren’t clear or some that work really well? Or are there some that you think might be offensive? And if so, what should I stay clear of? The certified Vegan symbol is always really good to see on packaging, as I said earlier I think some companies don’t do it as It can seem off putting to non-vegans. > Is there anything you’d like to see that you haven’t seen so far that I could incorporate some how? Most vegans are health conscious, personally I’m not! But what would be cool would be stating the health benefits of the product like how much cacao is in it etc and how its not packaged or produced anywhere near nuts or dairy or eggs.

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Research Findings

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fter putting together some moodboards for research into what is already out there in terms of key elements of the brief - healthy, free from, high-end etc - I have a much better idea of what current brands are doing, what I like and what I really don’t like and will therefore avoid for my own work. The work I like the look of the most comes from my initial inspiration moodboard. These designs are all very artistic and design oriented with aesthetic being a key part of how it looks. The only issue I have with a lot of it is they’ve used beautiful patterns, but it’s not immediately clear what the patterns represent or mean in terms of the chocolate within it. I need to make sure that my design has meaning to it and it is not just a randomly created pattern that looks good. The Free From chocolates that I found seems to have a very basic look to them and none seem particularly high-end or beautiful in design. Perhaps they have all

made the conscious decision to do this, but I would think that despite the free from element of the chocolate, they should still look as good and appealing as any normal chocolate. This is where talking to my friend who’s a vegan has been extremely helpful as she has given me an insight into what she thinks is important when looking for vegan chocolate. The only thing that might not have been helpful from this Q&A is that she’s not particularly healthy conscious, and this is the type of person that the clients have stated to want to appeal to. However, that said, she is a vegan because she truly believes it is better for animals to be one, not to lose weight or for health benefits, so she has been helpful solely for the vegan side of things.

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Design Phase 01 M

y initial ideas for the design of my chocolate range is seen to the left here. My first idea was to create patterns using the shapes of chocolate flavours, so for e.g. using an actual orange slice to print a pattern. However, I felt this was quite an obvious idea and has probably been done hundreds of times in one way or another. Although it may be aesthetically pleasing, I want to do something that means a bit more and looks unique against all the other thousands of candidates entering the competition. Therefore, my second idea was to create a pattern still, but to do so inspired by a chocolate bar that had been smashed / broken. This way, I still have a pattern design but it is unique in the way that it has been created. The gaps inbetween the broken chocolate can be the lines for the pattern of the chocolate chunks themselves can be filled with colour to create almost a marbled effect. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard

to see how this will look as a finalised, digital piece but I am feeling good about this idea, and it has been approved by Tom, also. I think the colour scheme should be based on the type of chocolate (i.e. milk, dark or white) and the second colour inspired by the flavour within the chocolate, so orange for chocolate orange, or green for mint. That way the design can be quite consistent throughout the range, but the colours can ensure each flavour is easily differentiated on a shop floor. I havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been able to think of a name for the range yet, but Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m hoping that when I start to put some designs together, than ideas will come to me, particularly if the designs start taking new directions.

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Pattern Experiments: Using a bar of chocolate that has been broken as the inspiration for this pattern / style. These are 2 ideas.

Idea:

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I want to keep the pattern consistent throughout this range, changing only the colour based on the flavour.

int

E.g. Chocolate & Orange E.g. Chocolate & Strawberry

Inspired by:

E.g. Chocolate & Mint

E.g. Chocolate & Strawberry

WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?

he general concesus after the first seminar of this project was that the design looked like a good piece of graphic design, but raised the question “what’s the big idea that’ll make it stand out amongst thousands of other applicants?” Really, I didn’t have an answer for that at this point, I had just been focusing on how I wanted the pattern to look, I hadn’t thought about what actually makes it unique. With the idea that the pattern is created out of broken chocolate, it was suggested that instead of using a complicated design of lots of broken bits, think about how people actually go to eat the chocolate. This could be the start of a campaign within the new range to encourage people to vote for whether they bite into their chocolate or break it. This is a really fun spin on the concept behind my patterns, and brings a much deeper meaning to the design

while also having some fun with it. This idea was suggested alongside just naming the range relating to breaking to indicate that that’s what the design is. This has given me a lot of new ideas for where to take the concept, and it’ll be interesting to see where it takes me, but I don’t want to do something that will become very time consuming. I’d rather focus on creating a successful chocolate range design than worry about the other sides to the brand such as a campaign. While I was and still am quite fond of the designs I came up with here, it is still good to hear of solutions to make the idea better and more exciting as I want the range to be clear and also appealing to an audience / potential customers.

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Seminar Feedback

Design Phase 02

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ith the feedback received for my first designs, I have started to think of a new way to approach this design. At present, I am thinking of changing it from a pattern-based design to a piece of packaging that is unique due to the packagin itself. Using the idea of starting a campaign for breaking or biting into a piece of chocolate, I thought of having two different pieces of packaging which depict each side. On the design there is an option to vote for which kind of chocolate-eater you are on social media or on a potential landing page. The idea behind it is to have the shape of a bite or a break cut out of the chocolate bar to show beneath it the bar itself of even some foil wrapped around the bar. I am concerned at this point that that will be a lot of work for this project, but I really like the idea so will be sticking with it for now and see how it comes out in my designs. I am not at this time sure whether to make this new concept heavily typographic or

to still somehow incorporate the patterns I created, but I think I will play around with both ideas and see how they look. I am excited to see how this concept goes, but also worried about a few points that might leave me a bit tight for time. However, there is absolutely no harm in me experimenting with this concept and seeing what the feedback is, as it may end up that I scrap it completely anyway. Only time will tell!

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aving created some designs based on this campaign idea, I showed Tom my ideas for some feedback. Essentially the typography works really well, but it is missing something. The concept is good but the patterns need to be worked on more. Tom suggested perhaps moving away from the idea of creating patterns out of broken chocolate and concentrate on creating new patterns that relate to the flavour somehow. Also it was mentioned that the way the logo is set up isn’t working so well so I need to try and experiment more with this to make it work better without being a massive feature of the design as it doesn’t work particularly well. Tom stated that the design doesn’t really need the bite / break mark in it and I should think more about the composition and design than that element as it’s not a key feature and

it could become way too complicated in the time frame we’re working for for this project. I am quite happy with this feedback as I do agree, and I did feel that something was missing, but also kind of stressed as I’m not entirely sure where to take it now and if it will continue to have the ‘big idea’ I was planning on creating in these initial design creations. I was given a few ideas on how to proceed, so it’s not as though I am starting from scratch, but I am now unsure exactly of how the end product will look. But, I am optimistic and I will think of this as exciting rather than stressful as it could open a lot more doors than if I was set in a strict idea. I was also told to create the design away from the template and just focus on the front so I don’t get distracted by all the other elements on other sides.

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Design Feedback

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Design Template A

lthough I am changing the design I created before, I am really happy with the size of the template I created. Although the brief says to put the new design on their current packaging, I felt that their packaging is only created with bite-size chocolates in mind and not chocolate bars, which is what I want this range to be. Therefore, I took the template from their brand guidelines and changed it to a narrower, thinner shape that would

hold a decent sized chocolate bar. The majority of the brandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s current chocolates have more packaging than chocolate itself, so with my packaging and ideas I intend to have a bar that fills the shape of the packaging so the customers get a filling chunk of chocolate. That way, even when theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re being healthy conscious, they can still get a decent, satisfying amount of chocolate and not feel guilty about it or feel like theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve eaten less because the

FRONT

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BACK

packaging only holds a small amount. Above is the template I have created for my bar. Although I wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be focusing on the design within the template just yet, I thought it was good to get an idea of the shape so I can create a design accordingly. I do think it is a good side for a chocolate bar, and when I printed and put together my initial design, it felt like a size that would be good to get your teeth into and enjoy! The disappointing part of the Grown Up Chocolate Companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s current products is that there is not that much in there. On the outside, they feel like they must have a lot of chocolate inside as they are big and chunky, but actually when

you open it there are only a few small bits of chocolate. This is something I think should be avoided for this range. They probably wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t keep the size at all, but for me it feels like a good size and there were a couple of comments emphasising the same when I brought it in for feedback.

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Design Phase 03 M

oving away from the campaign idea, I am going back to basics with the pattern design and thinking about what I want this to look like behind the typography. The top design here was an initial, instant idea Tom gave me with my feedback and as a basis for how to progress with this project. From there, I have decided to create a series of shapes and patterns that I think could relate to the flavour of each product. What makes these designs more interesting is that they are dashed lines rather than full which relates back to the idea of breaking - breaking up the lines, and breaking into the chocolate. I agree that these look

much more aesthetically pleasing, but I can’t see them as a finished piece yet. I know this will come as I experiment, so will just have to see what I can come up with. At the moment I am just focusing on the orange peel flavour, but eventually I will need to think of patterns for other flavours too as I can’t have the same pattern for all of them or it’ll just be a boring range of chocolates in terms of how it looks. It’s almost too easy just to use the same pattern on all of them.

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inally happy with a pattern (the above for orange peel) I started to look at printing to see how it would come out. For the sake of this experiment, I used the same pattern for the peppermint flavour which I wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do for the final piece, but just to see how it comes out. I am quite happy with how this looks, and when shown to my seminar group, Tom stated that it was a massive improvement from where I was before. Things just needed to be neatened up (such as the

typogaphy on the back of the design, some of the patterns has breaks in them and the layout of the logo and other two â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;stickersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; needed to be changed or grouped together). I am happy that the response was good for this new design and I can now continue with it and refine the design to be more professional and finished in look.

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fter my experimentation with patterns, these are the three I have chosen for the three flavours:

•Dark Chocolate & Orange Peel •Dark Chocolate & Peppermint •Dark Chocolate & Strawberry I am really pleased with how these have come out. Especially as on the design they will be quite subtle, but when you look closer you can see that the patterns relate to the flavour of the chocolate in some way. They aren’t an accurate or exact replica of the flavours, but they are my take on the ingredients and created

in a way that symbolises them and also looks appealing and aesthetic as a pattern. The colours all work really well with the dark brown background for the chocolate and I think with the typography and composition on top, it will work well as a commercial piece of design. The pattern is subtle enough to allow typography on top to be the main point of hierarchy, but clear enough for the customers to look closer and see that there is something there that represents the ingredients and make the overall packaging a bit more exciting.

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Pattern Designs

Front & Back Designs

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ere are the front and back designs I have gone for, for my packaging design. The front is very simple but straight to the point. The range title is at the top of the hierarchy in the composition due to it’s size and also being the brightest colour. Second would be the flavour of the chocolate as it is immediately below the title and the order in which people will read. The logo and handmade / no kids icons are hopefully the last bit of focus on the design as they are bottom right, so ideally not a big enough part of the composition to draw someone’s eye immediately to it. It is an essential part of the design, but I don’t want it to distract from the rest of the composition. The back designs were quite difficult to begin with as it was a lot of information to put into a small space. The barcode and ‘Best Before’ need to be big enough to be scanned and information to be put into, so that made it more difficult too to make the rest of the information legible. All of the main text - i.e. ingredients, information and address - have been put on the left

of the design so to be the first thing people read. I have included a section that describes that each type of bar (vegan, nut free, dairy free) are produced away from the ingredients that people are avoiding. My friend that is a vegan said that this is good to read as it is reassuring for buyers that they are definitey eating something that is either safe to them, or has no risk of being contaminated with ingredients they are strictly avoiding. These are accompanied with the symbols that indicate what each bar is. I didn’t want these to be a main feature as for the most part I wanted the design to feel like a normal bar of chocolate, not necessarily a bar that is free of ingredients as that may stop some potential buyers from making a purchase. It has been commented that the type setting of the back of the design is really successful, which I am pleased about as it is a lot of information that is difficult to display in a way that still includes all of the essential information as well as looking appealing. I am hoping I have done a reasonable job, however.

dark chocolate & strawberry

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dark chocolate & orange peel

dark chocolate & PEPPERMINT Dark chocolate bar with strawberry

NUTRITIONAL INFORM ATION: Typical Values (Per 100g)

INGREDIENTS: Candied Or ange Peel (O range Peel, Suga r, Glucose Syrup), Cocoa Beans, Sugar , Cocoa Butter , Emulsifier: S oya Lecithin, Natur al Vanilla Extr act. Dark Chocolate (62% Cocoa Min, Pur e Cocoa Butter )

our break free dairy free range chocolates are created away from all dairy products! The Grown Up Chocolate Compan y: 3 Capital Place, L ovet Road, Harlo w, Essex CM19 5AS United Kingdo m

Energy

best before

100g storage: please store in cool dry place

Dark chocolate bar with orange peel

NUTRITIONAL INFORM ATION: Typical Values (P er 100g)

INGREDIENTS: Candied O range Peel (O range Peel, Suga r, Glucose Syrup), Cocoa Beans, Sugar , Cocoa Butter , Emulsifier: S oya Lecithin, Natur al Vanilla Extr act. Dark Chocolate (62% Cocoa Min, Pur e Cocoa Butter )

our break free nut free range chocolates are created away from any nuts or allergens! The Grown Up Chocolate Compa ny: 3 Capital Place, L ovet Road, Harlo w, Essex CM19 5AS United Kingdom

Fat of which satur ates Carboh ydrates of which suga rs Fibre3 Protein9 Salt

2291k J 550kcal 35.4g 16.4g 50.1g 44.5g .7g .6g 0.4g

Energy

best before

100g storage: please store in cool dry place

Fat of which satur ates Carboh ydrates of which suga rs Fibre3 Protein9 Salt

2291k J 550kcal 35.4g 16.4g 50.1g 44.5g .7g .6g 0.4g

Dark chocolate bar with PEPPERMINT INGREDIENTS: Candied Orange Peel (Orange Peel, Sugar, Glucose Syrup), Cocoa Beans, Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Emulsifier: Soya Lecithin, Natural Vanilla Extract. Dark Chocolate (62% Cocoa Min, Pure Cocoa Butter)

Our Break Free Vegan range chocolates are hand made away from nuts, eggs and dairy! The Grown Up Chocolate Company: 3 Capital Place, Lovet Road, Harlow, Essex CM19 5AS United Kingdom

best before

100g storage: please store in cool dry place

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION: Typical Values (Per 100g) Energy Fat of which saturates Carbohydrates of which sugars Fibre Protein Salt

2291kJ 550kcal 35.4g 16.4g 50.1g 44.5g 3.7g 9.6g 0.4g

BREAK FREE from GUILT THIS RECIPE IS 100% VEGAN

188

dark chocolate & peppermint Dark chocolate bar with orange peel

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION: Typical Values (Per 100g)

INGREDIENTS: Candied Orange Peel (Orange Peel, Sugar, Glucose Syrup), Cocoa Beans, Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Emulsifier: Soya Lecithin, Natural Vanilla Extract. Dark Chocolate (62% Cocoa Min, Pure Cocoa Butter)

our break free nut free range chocolates are created away from any nuts or allergens! The Grown Up Chocolate Company: 3 Capital Place, Lovet Road, Harlow, Essex CM19 5AS United Kingdom

Energy

best before

100g storage: please store in cool dry place

Fat of which saturates Carbohydrates of which sugars Fibre Protein Salt

2291kJ 550kcal 35.4g 16.4g 50.1g 44.5g 3.7g 9.6g 0.4g

BREAK FREE FROM ALLERGENS THERE ARE NO NUTS IN HERE!

dark chocolate & orange peel

dark chocolate & strawberry BREAK FREE FROM intolerance this bar is dairy free! The Grown Up Chocolate Company: 3 Capital Place, Lovet Road, Harlow, Essex CM19 5AS United Kingdom

storage: please store in cool dry place

100g

our break free dairy free range chocolates are created away from all dairy products! INGREDIENTS: Candied Orange Peel (Orange Peel, Sugar, Glucose Syrup), Cocoa Beans, Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Emulsifier: Soya Lecithin, Natural Vanilla Extract. Dark Chocolate (62% Cocoa Min, Pure Cocoa Butter)

Energy

2291kJ 550kcal 35.4g 16.4g 50.1g 44.5g 3.7g 9.6g 0.4g

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION: Typical Values (Per 100g)

189

Dark chocolate bar with strawberry

best before

Fat of which saturates Carbohydrates of which sugars Fibre Protein Salt

Design Templates O

nce I had decided on the main design for my packaging, I went on to create the templates. This is how the design would look flat. I did the two ends in the flavour colours so that if the chocolates were stacked together somehow, they would have a really nice look and instantly be differentiated before even seeing the full packaging. I am happy with how this looks, but it is always much

better to see and feel the overall look when it is 3D or as a physical copy. Sadly I havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been able to find a sufficient printer for this project, but as I am not all that good at cutting and sticking, I will probably end up doing them as digital 3D designs anyway, but I will still give it a try to see how they look.

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s stated before, cutting and sticking is not my strength in design, and alongside this, I was unable to find a printer that both printed the design successfully and appealing whilst also folding nicely. My home printer came out extremely faded, but folded together nicely, and the printers at university printed really nice and colourful, but when folding, the ink started to peel off. My physically cut prototypes from a few pages ago donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t look too bad, but that is just the lighting and photographs as in person they were extremely flimsy, poorly cut and wonky when stuck together.

These 3D visuals are enough to give an idea of how the design would look as a bar, however missing small features such as the text on the flaps, but it is the best way for me without creating a poorly put together piece of packaging. I am happy with the design as it does look like a chocolate bar and I think if it was used to actually hold a chocolate bar, it would definitely â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;do what it says on the tinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. The patterns work well with the colour schemes and compositions and it is great to see how this comes out in 3D too.

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3D Design Visuals

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decided to a very quick PDF / presentation of how I might pitch the design ideas to the client. It is only very basic, but demonstrates the designs, the ideas and information about how I see it being used. I felt this was also a good way for me to explain why I did certain things throughout the design that I might not have mentioned throughout this process book. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nothing amazing or exciting, but does clearly state the reasons behind the name of the range, the patterns and other little elements such as the symbols. I feel that doing this presentation has been good practice for me anyway as this is likely to be the kind of thing I need to

create when working in the industry for potential clients with my ideas, and it is a way of neatly writing down all the things I have had in my mind when putting together the design pieces but havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t put down in to words as yet. I have kept the fonts consistent in this presentation so the clients would feel it is familiar already and works better with the designs I am showing if they all link together, even in a subtle way like the fonts.

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Design Pitch Presentation

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The Designs Together A

lthough there is a lot of consistency in my final designs within the typography, composition and layout, when put together they are very nicely distinguishable through the colour schemes I have chosen, and when looking closer, the patterns that make them each unique. As they are a range, I felt it was important to link them all in together as though they are a series, but do so in a way that makes it clear that each one is unique and holds something different to the rest. I think this has been executed well simply through the colours.

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Dark chocolate bar with strawberry INGREDIENTS: Candied Orange Peel (Orange Peel, Sugar, Glucose Syrup), Cocoa Beans, Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Emulsifier: Soya Lecithin, Natural Vanilla Extract. Dark Chocolate (62% Cocoa Min, Pure Cocoa Butter)

our break free dairy free range chocolates are created away from all dairy products! The Grown Up Chocolate Company: 3 Capital Place, Lovet Road, Harlow, Essex CM19 5AS United Kingdom

best before

100g storage: please store in cool dry place

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION: Typical Values (Per 100g) Energy Fat of which saturates Carbohydrates of which sugars Fibre Protein Salt

2291kJ 550kcal 35.4g 16.4g 50.1g 44.5g 3.7g 9.6g 0.4g

BREAK FREE FROM intolerance this bar is dairy free!

dark chocolate & strawberry Dark chocolate bar with PEPPERMINT

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION: Typical Values (Per 100g)

INGREDIENTS: Candied Orange Peel (Orange Peel, Sugar, Glucose Syrup), Cocoa Beans, Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Emulsifier: Soya Lecithin, Natural Vanilla Extract. Dark Chocolate (62% Cocoa Min, Pure Cocoa Butter)

Our Break Free Vegan range chocolates are hand made away from nuts, eggs and dairy! The Grown Up Chocolate Company: 3 Capital Place, Lovet Road, Harlow, Essex CM19 5AS United Kingdom

Energy

best before

100g storage: please store in cool dry place

Fat of which saturates Carbohydrates of which sugars Fibre Protein Salt

2291kJ 550kcal 35.4g 16.4g 50.1g 44.5g 3.7g 9.6g 0.4g

202

BREAK FREE from GUILT THIS RECIPE IS 100% VEGAN

dark chocolate & peppermint Dark chocolate bar with orange peel

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION: Typical Values (Per 100g)

INGREDIENTS: Candied Orange Peel (Orange Peel, Sugar, Glucose Syrup), Cocoa Beans, Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Emulsifier: Soya Lecithin, Natural Vanilla Extract. Dark Chocolate (62% Cocoa Min, Pure Cocoa Butter)

our break free nut free range chocolates are created away from any nuts or allergens! The Grown Up Chocolate Company: 3 Capital Place, Lovet Road, Harlow, Essex CM19 5AS United Kingdom

Energy

best before

100g storage: please store in cool dry place

Fat of which saturates Carbohydrates of which sugars Fibre Protein Salt

2291kJ 550kcal 35.4g 16.4g 50.1g 44.5g 3.7g 9.6g 0.4g

BREAK FREE FROM ALLERGENS THERE ARE NO NUTS IN HERE!

dark chocolate & orange peel

HOW DO I FEEL PART 02 OF THE PROJECT WENT? Overall, I am much happier with the process and outcome for this competition brief than I was for for the first part. My final outcome is very well fitted to the design brief in that it displays a good commercial use of the current brand’s ideas and put into a new range. I think the design I have gone for is immediately clear as a chocolate bar, but in some ways for me feels a lot like a protein bar rather than a healthy chocolate bar. Perhaps that’s just me, as lots of other people have said they’d pick it up as a chocolate bar! HOW COULD I HAVE IMPROVED? I think I could have thought more into the packaging itself and perhaps found a way of incorporating laser cutting techniques into it to make my design just that bit more exciting. I did think to have the patterns cut out in the laser cutter to show a colour-coordinated foil underneath, but it would have been a very time consuming idea, so I just stuck to really refining the idea that I had started and developed over the majority of the project.

WHAT HAVE I LEARNT ABOUT MYSELF AS A DESIGNER? I think for me, the biggest part of this brief was that I was creating pieces of graphic design that I have never done before. I’ve never done packaging design before, so this was a great chance and experience to do so. I enjoyed thinking of the functionality of the design, and particularly seeing my design as a 3 dimensional piece that can be used, opened and held. It’s a shame I am not good at the actual craftmaking that would have been needed to make a nicely refined piece of packaging, but luckily we have good access to software that enables us to be able to produce 3D mockups. I think this is something I could also try and improve - my craftmaking skills - as I am missing out on producing high quality final pieces that can be looked at physically. However, I did also have problems with finding a good printer which didn’t help me in my final outcome.

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Part 02 Evaluation

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Part 02 Evaluation In the final week before the deadline, I was battling with a cold so there are a few bits I wish I had been able to do but couldn’t. I would have loved to have done the landing page design for this as I did have enough time between finishing the design and the deadline, but as it wasn’t essential for the deadline, I decided not to stress myself over it and concentrate on finalising all the other elements that were important. I do personally feel that this project has been a very weak one for me. Whether this is because I haven’t had the same excitement towards it than other projects, or I just lost my motivation towards it due to my lack of ideas, I don’t know, but I

didn’t have the same strive towards it as I have done in previous projects. I am really sad by this, as I had hoped to come into third year raring to go and produce the best work I can, but a part of me has been distant from this first project so this hasn’t happened for me. There have been parts that I really enjoyed, once I started to get ideas and inspiration for my own design, I just wish I had been able to keep this up for the entire thing.