#PENGUINBOOKCOVER

[mo79zz]

Penguin Book Cover Design Evaluation

Once I got into the swing of this project, I found it really enjoyable - however the first part was an absolute nightmare.

I realised after I began designing my book cover for 'A City of Stolen Magic' that I had chosen the hardest book in my opinion, as a lot of the criteria had already been met, I just saw an opportunity for illustration and rolled with it. This created a lot of stress for me, on top of a week long, which soon turned into a few day long deadline, due to my failed experiments. My outcomes just weren't turning out like the image I was envisioning in my head, so I decided to scrap that book entirely and move on to a different one.

Doing that was the best decision I made throughout the project as once I had binned it off and moved to a different book - 'Atomic Habits' - I was full of ideas.

I really enjoyed being able to produce something that I was envisioning for the second book and it meant I could complete it very quickly and not worry about the time I had lost. I used both Adobe Illustrator and Procreate for the design work, and Adobe InDesign for the layout, all softwares I am familiar with which definitely helped improve the speed of work being made. Although I technically did create two final designs for this book as I had set everything out and it was almost ready, once I had criticised it, I thought it may be fun to start another and see which I prefer (even though the errors on the first could be fixed)

However, after designing and finishing it, I looked up some more inspiration on Pinterest as well as my other class mates work and realised their designs are a lot sleeker, stick to one colour theme and suit the book more. While I wish I took a route like this, I am also glad I stayed true to my design style and initial thoughts for the book.

To conclude, I am super happy with the outcome, including the design, layout and colour scheme - and hopefully this will kickstart my (current) career plans with book cover design.

[charliedesigns]

Brief// Penguin Book Cover Design

Children’s Book Covers & Illustration

Although I have chosen a non-fiction book for this brief, I absolutely love children’s books and wanted to cover this as part of my research.  

What I love about children’s books is not only the stories but the power of the illustrations included.  I know as a child picture books definitely enhanced my sense of wonder, delight and unlimited possibility.  

For young children, illustrated books open the door to understanding the story. Illustrations provide young readers with an immediate vision of the characters, setting, and mood of the story. Children instantly respond to characters from their visual appeal. We all know and love many picture book characters from their image alone.

The unique style of illustrations on even just the cover of a book have become increasingly associated with their story, making these iconic covers stand out on all bookshelves.

I think particularly for me, books from my childhood and now the stories I read my own children have become a treasured piece of nostalgia and fond memories that will live with me forever - I'm not sure fiction or non-fiction books would ever hold the same importance for me.

Here are some of my favourite children’s book not only for the stories but also the illustrations:

Quentin Blake's collaborations with Roald Dahl have charmed generations of children with his imaginative depictions of characters such as The BFG, Matilda and The Twits.  The childlike expressiveness in his illustrations seem to become somewhat sinister when they sit alongside Dahl’s text. It’s a strange kind of magic that brings out the best qualities in both the writer and the illustrator.

The first Harry Potter book was published in 1997 when I was 15 years old and is probably the most recognised book series in the world.  I came to the books much later when I was in my early 20′s and I'm not ashamed to admit I have read each of them countless times.  I have been to the theme park in the USA, watched the movies over and over and bought the merchandise!

Over the years there have been many versions of these covers and interestingly the UK versions in the images above were designed by 4 different illustrators.  

I think what’s obvious in all the covers I have selected and children's books in general is that visual imagery holds more importance than typography.  I'm sure the reason for this is because children are very visual and as mentioned previously they instantly respond to characters from their visual appeal. 

References

“36 Children’s Book Covers That Will Bring out the Kid in Anyone.” 99designs, 17 July 2017, 99designs.co.uk/blog/creative-inspiration/36-childrens-book-covers-that-will-bring-out-the-kid-in-anyone/. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.

Kennedy, Philip, and Philip Kennedy. “Quentin Blake, Roald Dahl and the Enormous Success of a Crocodile - Illustration Chronicles.” Illustrationchronicles.com, 2016, illustrationchronicles.com/Quentin-Blake-Roald-Dahl-and-the-Enormous-Success-of-a-Crocodile.

“Quentin Blake: ‘Spend Time with Children? Good God, No.’” The Guardian, 29 Feb. 2020, www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/29/inside-the-magical-world-of-quentin-blake. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.

“See How the ‘Harry Potter’ Book Covers Have Changed through the Years.” EW.com, ew.com/books/harry-potter-book-covers/?slide=5906408#5906408. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.

[robertocutrera]

Sketch Ideation

I have been told not to edit in the mind, but sometimes I just can't help it. my RVJ has become a rescue centre for my thoughts which has often made me confused as to what it is I want to do. 

For the Penguin book cover I have been seeking inspiration from two graphic artists as shown previously where I have then drawn inspiration form their work and my own work to draw up an idea I have come up with from the research I have conducted about the book.

I would like the cover to focus on the work behind the scenes and the many hours spent researching these theories.

I have a vision of Hawing at a desk strewn with crumpled papers, notes, books and articles. Working away tirelessly to refine the facts for us to be able to begin  to understand the discoveries that have helped to define who we are and how it all began.

Posted | Sunday 5th November 2017

[adiwooddrummer]

A wall of old paperback book covers. #photo #creativephoto #creativephotography #penguinbookcovers #bookcovers #photos #photography #lovephoto #lovephotography #paperback #paperbackbook (at Astley Book Farm)

[freyabel-blog]

Penguin Book Cover Competition

I decided to enter the book Cover competition, for the Children’s Fiction Cover, The Secret Diary of Adrien Mole Aged 13 1/2. I really enjoyed making this cover. My idea behind the design is falling into adulthood which I feel really sums up this book. The objects are falling around him like life being thrown at him. I wanted this all to be falling into the diary like emotions and events being sprawled onto the pages. The blurb and layout can be altered as the type is a little small and it would be nice if it were to follow the lines of the diary. 

[samthornthwaitedesign]

this is some of my first primary research. i have been taking photos around the woods in hopes to spark any ideas for my book cover. 

[lunaranjo]

Penguin Book Cover Competition

This is my proposal for the Penguin Book Cover competition. I chose the book A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. And that was the final result, using Adobe Illustrator. I am quite happy even if I know I could always have done better if I knew how to use the software in a professional way. 

But I am happy with the design anyways! 

[lucakthirdyear-blog]

This is what I believe to be the final book cover. I had to edit the penguin logo to be white and change the font of the quote on the front. I decided not to move that as it fit there well and reflected the author name at the bottom. I found the blurb tricky to place, so added some lines to the story part, so that it shows it is an extract from the diary. Only issue I am having now is the piece of text between the blurb and the quote above the barcode. It kind of floats there and I am not sure where to position it.

For the cover text I added a satin texture effect to make it more like a marker pen. It adds darker patches of black. I matched the typeface on the spine but in white, this makes it more consistent with the rest of the design. 

Initially I had the book cover taking up the whole actual cover, but the round corners proved to be a problem. I decided to shrink the image of the cover a little, and then make the background beige to represent inner pages. I had only shrunk the book a little to start with, but when printed and cropped, the beige looks inconsistent and like a mistake, so I had to include more of it.

[thisisoccuring-blog]

one flew over the cuckoo's nest. More ideas. march 2012.

[mo79zz]

Final Book Cover Design

With this new design I tried to highlight the importance of how this book ''builds good habits and breaks bad ones''. I designed the front cover with a keyhole to the 'brain' and all these bright 'habits' (shapes and blobs) spilling out of the keyhole uncontrollably as a woman enters planning to fix them. Then on the back, the 'habits' are all neatly stored and tucked away as the woman walks off. This is meant to signify how as you read the book, you go through a journey, the back cover is representation of the end result and you are the key to your own success.

These are my annotations of the cover

My cover did go through one minor change after some peer reviews and that was to make the shelving inside the key deeper and wider to fill all of the keyhole. As well as this, I needed to fix the perspective as it was behind the keyhole at the top, but on the floor at the bottom it didn't make sense. I think the end result looks a lot better and more sleek, so I'm glad I got some opinions elsewhere.

[mo79zz]

Book Cover Design 1

This is my first book cover design after choosing Atomic Habits. Knowing that the book is about adding small changes to your daily routine so they become a habit and 'adjust your mind and perception' I thought that a river with someone rowing up to the mountains and brain could symbolise a 'pathway' to this change.

As this was my first attempt, I encountered a few issues with it:

I wasn't too happy with the outcome due to these errors. While they are able to be altered, I wanted to experiment with a new design for my own peace of mind and satisfaction.

[mo79zz]

Book Cover Inspiration

Moodboard:

Immediately knowing I wanted to illustrate the cover, give it some life, and add some colour - I began brainstorming some designs. I looked on Pinterest and found these images and the colours from them that I planned to take inspiration from.

Colour Palettes:

I created some colour palettes based off the above images, these helped spark some ideas for my designs.

Typography:

I wanted to keep the typeface very simple as I plan to illustrate the front and back cover - so having an extravagant font would be too distracting. However I thought a condensed sans-serif font may look more put together than the original, so this is what I decided on.

[mo79zz]

New Book Cover Annotations

The new book I decided on was "Atomic Habits"

I annotated my initial thoughts about the front cover and found a lot more room for improvement in comparison to the other book I chose. I feel like illustrating this book would be a lot easier for me as there is no standard I need to try and replicate for this book as it is much simpler and less eye-catching than A City of Stolen Magic.

I used his website to read up a quick summary about the book.

[mo79zz]

Redesign & Inspiration

I did some more searching for some designs that might help spark some ideas for my book cover. I came across these books that fit the theme I was going for, the colour palettes, as well as include a border and illustrations.

I tried a new design for the book cover. I drew out a silhouette of the Taj Mahal as it felt fitting with the Indian city the character travels through. I added some colour and a border but after some peer reviews I got told it looked like a takeaway menu - and they were right. That was the cut-off point for this design

I decided to scrap this book choice entirely as it wasn't going anywhere and I was becoming increasingly frustrated with it.

Additionally, a problem that I encountered was that I was struggling to find anything to change or improve about the original cover, as it included the character, her journey through London and India, and had a magical feel to it. I was struggling to make it better.

[mo79zz]

Planning & Experimentation

I began planning out some ideas on illustrator of how I would lay out the front cover, so I knew what shape border to design. I also planned out a second cover with a different typeface - just to see how it would look but I wasn't as much a fan.

I drew out the border in procreate then imported it into illustrator. I used the image trace tool, then expanded the image so that I could add an effect - 3D and Materials, then extruded and bevelled it.

I like the end result - but not for the book cover. It doesn't fit the brief very well and doesn't give you any insight into the book, nor does it draw the reader in. I put this design on the back burner while I tried a few more experiments.

[mo79zz]

Book Cover Inspiration & Research

Moodboard:

I started out this project by getting some inspiration off of Pinterest, hoping it would help me brainstorm some designs. My idea for the new front cover is to make it feel like a spell book or ‘grimoire’ or give it a tarot card style, with the border and any illustrations I do. I wanted to stick within the same colour palette as the original as purples combined with yellows/gold already has a magical feel

Typefaces:

I looked at some different categories for fonts, such as blackletter, calligraphy, ornaments and wedding

Calligraphy & wedding - feels more handwritten and like it was written with a feather and ink as this fits with the time frame the book was set in

Ornaments - for additional ‘spellbook’ decoration

Blackletter - an old english lettering style, again that fits with the time the book was set

As the book is set in 1855, I thought sticking with blackletter would be best as it has an old English London feel to it. These are the 3 fonts I decided on:

Amador - for the title

Filosofia - for any other text (ie. the reviews)

Rafaella - for the names (author and reviewers)

Artist Research:

I came across this typography artist and really liked her work. I really like bevelling on the lettering and the colour palettes. She uses procreate to do these which is a programme I am familiar with and have a good understanding of - I feel like I could achieve something similar for my book