After analysing the existing book covers I
began by creating 30 initial sketches of what my book cover designs would
potentially look like. Taking most of the inspiration from the third analysed
book cover, I began constructing different ways that the type and imagery could
be layed out, on the front, back and spine of the covers.
Many of the first sketches show basic
imagery that has been inspired by the ideas of the book and representations of
the time period in which it was set. This includes the use of objects, such as
the murder weapons involved in the case. By adding these the viewer can
immediately determine that the book may be to do with crime. Another idea was
to mimic the layout of a newspaper front cover. This was in relation to The New
York Times, which printed the story at the time.
Many of the adjectives that were associated
with the book during the research stage are also reflected in some of these
designs. For example, a cover that primarily focuses on the colour schemes and
attention to type rather than imagery would represent the adjective mysterious.
This way the audience are open to interpret the book cover for themselves and
what mystery they can uncover through reading the non-fiction novel.
During this stage in the process, I decided
that it would be appropriate to see what sizes are best for the typography. For
example, after the research stage I found that the third book cover I had
analysed was the most successful in terms of type as it structured the title in
the centre, with the authors name above. After receiving advice from my peers,
they also decided that this was the best cover of the three.
However, one of the initial ideas was to
create the cover in a style similar to a newspaper, meaning the type may not
work to fit this structure.
In terms of the typography itself, I decided
to look into the fonts that were being used for newspaper articles and
headlines. The New York Times in particular has used one font for many of their
articles. This was Cheltenham, a font that I later decided to play around with
during the development stages. Other fonts that were experimented with during
the process include Bodoni 72 and Garamond, as they were both formal fonts to
use for a book, which is based on serious themes.
Although my intentions for the book cover were to create a more
modernised version of In Cold Blood, I still decided that using traditional
serif fonts would be most appropriate for the process. However during the final
stages of the project some suggested that the experimentation of sans serif for
the covers might have worked just as well.
As shown here, several variations of the book cover were designed using layouts including the rule of thirds, the Marber grid system and hierarchy grids, as learn during the course of the design principles module. This helped in the positioning of the text, as well as the images and spacing for the margins.
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