Katie Smith // 520237 // Graphic Design 1:Core Concepts // Part 5: Layout // judging a book by its cover exercise
What genre is the book? Thriller
What characterises thriller or psychological Thriller book covers?
Learning points so far - the visual language used on a book cover:
- Form is a key focus, it should catch the reader’s eye from the shelf before it can even start trying to convey a message. - The words are the path to follow with book covers.
What suggests that this is a psychological thriller?
- The stark colour contrast - The solid strucure of everything being centrally alligned and everything (except ‘the’) is kept bolt upright - The vinette around the edges, zooming in on the details, something is under the spotlight - Very strong formulated fonts (both Sans Serif and Serif), they don’t use script fonts (only on the letter). - Often black and white with an accent colour but sometimes the covers are more vibrant. - Textures. These features do not describe the previous covers of Moriarty’s books, they suggest a different kind of genre from initial impressions.
- “A good book cover should also reward the reader - there should be a little bit of mystery to allow for personal interpretation, and enough depth in the image so the reader’s experience of the cover changes and grows as they make their way through the text.” https://bearbooks.se/tag/new-visual-artists/ -This one single message that needs to be conveyed to the audience should be highlighted through every single choice. - Double meanings aren’t a bad thing, this will allow the audience to be intrigued by what the meaning could really be behind a cover. - The title is typically bigger than the author’s name. Although an author’s name can often sell a book, the style of the book cover will help identify the author if an established style has been used. - Creativity isn’t something that is required here, it is more being clever with your choices. Extravagent fonts will get you nowhere with a crime novel. - During the process, try and separate yourself from a designer and a reader. - Realism can be used to make the audience believe in the story more as it is seen to be possible.
Grief
Guilt
History
Secrets
Trust?
Betrayal
Danger
Katie Smith // 520237 // Graphic Design 1:Core Concepts // Part 5: Layout // judging a book by its cover exercise
Images used to help design shoot plan 1.
Covers developed after shoot 1, all images my own minus last image which is used to help with shoot 2.
All my own images.
Katie Smith // 520237 // Graphic Design 1:Core Concepts // Part 5: Layout // judging a book by its cover exercise
The three shoot plans will be put on this page to show how I managed to visualise the results I wanted to obtain from each shoot. Put each plan in and then learning points from each shoot
Katie Smith // 520237 // Graphic Design 1:Core Concepts // Part 5: Layout // judging a book by its cover exercise
Katie Smith // 520237 // Graphic Design 1:Core Concepts // Part 5: Layout // judging a book by its cover exercise
Evaluation: In many ways, I was dreading doing another book design exercise because last time, it really hadn’t worked! The designs themselves worked well individually but not as a series and as a result, I was unsure whether the designs were actually any good. Having worked my way through the Core Concepts module since then, I was pleasantly surprised at the results that I was able to produce. The designs not only capture what the book is about but throughout this exercise I have been able to develop my creativity and visual skills to make sure that these book designs were more successful than the last ones. What initially helped with these designs was the fact that I know the book. I have read it and loved the storyline and therefore, knew exactly what needed to be highlighted within the designs. Looking at the previous covers, as well as covers from similar style books, threw me a little off guard to start with. The covers suggest that the books are more romanticised, possibly being a ‘chick flick’ kind of book. Being able to identify that this is more of a thriller book, directing the research into a more appropriate field that enabled me to judge the success of the designs on how well the covers portrayed the genre (just part of the criteria). In many ways, the photographic book saw me develop my visulisation and photographic skills more than the typography book design did. In order to be more focused when shooting, I used other people’s images to create mock book covers so that I knew the style of image that I needed to take. From here, more refined shoot plans could be made so that during the shoot, I knew exactly what I wanted to achieve and it made me consider every photo that was taken. The lighting style that I opted for whilst photographing was a little different for me. I had to make sure that the thriller style of cover, whilst also romanticising it slightly, could be achieved within my images. This meant I opted for 2 very harsh lights which were sometimes too harsh or produced flash spots on the rings. Softening this during editing was something that I had to start doing but it made me work backwards in my head when it came to the second shoot. The focus of this exercise was the layout and in order to understand the layout properly, it helped to have developed an understanding for shape psychology through my development for The French Hen exercise. The use of a rectangle not only mirrored the shape of the envelope but by positioning it slightly off of the page, the shape is broken and therefore, what originally would have seemed closed off and secretive is now being revealed. This reflects the storyline well as a letter is opened to reveal ‘The Husband’s Secret’. The layout was driven by the contrast and dominance of different colours. Using a previous exercise, I was able to establish which colours should be more dominant within the design in order to present a sense of danger. The omniscious nature of this leaves the audience wondering what is contained within the letter that could cause this idea of danger. It helped that yellow was also put in the description of the letter. When the letter is found in the book, it is described to have a layer of yellow dust on it which is originally why yellow was used. But after revisiting the key words, it reminded me that yellow would also fit with the connotation of danger and it would be inkeeping with the research points that I made when looking at other thriller books. Out of the two covers, I think that the photographic cover is a more sucecssful design based off of other thriller book designs however, the use of typography on its own produces something that still portrays the thriller genre just in doesn’t use the image to the advantage of the design. Communicating a message to the audience is done more successfully through the photographic cover as it portrays more about the story. Whereas, when looking at the covers and which has helped me to learn about layout more, it would have to be the typography design.
Katie Smith // 520237 // Graphic Design 1:Core Concepts // Part 5: Layout // judging a book by its cover exercise