This project has been quite a revelation for me. By the end of the collaboratve brief and image, I felt I'd exhausted myself as a very hand crafted illustrator. Not only that, but I'd realised my need to rigidly stick to that formula was actually hindering my progress as a designer. I would become too precious about my illustrations and not be willing to mess around with what I was doing.
With this bit of context in mind, I decided that I wanted to look at type and layout a little bit. The choice of book covers as my subject was perfect, it allowed me to consolidate my need for typography with my understanding of image and colour that I'd already built up. In terms of design development, I feel that I've tried a lot more out in terms the actual image that could go on the cover, as well as a whole host of different layouts. I found it all very liberating and freeing. What's brilliant, to me, I could have still explored many different things, and though I limited myself stylistically, I know now where I truly have room to grow.I think I realised after the show and tell crit, that my knowledge of typography is limited, but I got advice from several peers who did the type module and managed to vastly improve the quality of the type. I don't know why I enjoyed being so isolated before, but I feel like I've engaged with the peers around me, more so than ever before, and I truly tried to embrace the criticisms my work got, and worked positively from them. Sometimes it didn't work, like the feedback about more experimental layout (which came to not much) but the feedback on my type was really helpful. I guess I didn't really consider my audience, 12 pt would be insulting to a reader of classic literature, where 10 pt is still highly legible and seems a lot less kiddish.
As is usual, in terms of the research and context, I think I explored what I needed to reasonably well, looking at how Penguin functioned past and present in terms of their cover design, but also looking at what makes cover design great in general. I did some early primary research looking at people who don't read a lot of books, but I don't think this was useful on reflection, I got my audience wrong... they're more likely to be seasoned readers and collectors in general. Once I realised this, I went about trying to package them in a desirable fashion and found strength in my work drawing from that. And in terms of what could be done to improve: it really is the smaller, finer details that I have issue with, sometimes things aren't aligned quite right, colour modes aren't double checked etc. and this reduces what could be great to merely good, and it's something I must start getting properly right if I ever want to be at a professional standard.
The usual 'could of managed my time better' probably doesn't apply as much as it used to, I really tried to focus my efforts, but I think I did take a while to start actually generating visuals, which was a little bit of a hinderence if I'm honest. Also, I have a tendency to zone out and not do much of anything for a few hours every so often, and it seems quite obvious, but I've got to find coping strategies to deal with it, because it's time I could have devoted to the areas such as digital and physical advertising, that were a little neglected.
In conclusion, I'm really glad I threw out my own little rulebook and just tried to blitz out so many variations, it really helped, but theres still room to put out an even greater qauntity of them so I have that to improve on as well as a little bit of tweaking in terms of time management strategy. Also, I have to cut out the silly little mistakes.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Spec
Here's just a quick spec that Penguin can use with other designers to continue the author's collection series. I would propose that they could change the fonts if they wished as long as they keep rigidly to the layout.
Design boards final
Here are my final design boards I printed them at drop in at lunchtime today, I've tried to demonstrate a range of things that the brief was asking for, one issue really is that I haven't proposed how the covers could be used for future author collections (I thought about it too late), I'll make a spec and post it on here though, really I could of done with that spec on a board instead of physical advertising. missed opportunity eh?
Changes to layout include removing the John Steinbeck logo, replacing it with titles for the boards. I also made sure there wasn't any typos, however I'm sure there will be some glaring mistake that will become apparent quite quickly. Oh well, never mind.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
physical advertising.
Ok, so now I had to consider physical advertising. Companies don't use a lot of physical advertising to promote books, and when they do it's often adshels for bus stops and train stations. Here is an extremely quick mock up because time is runing short and I need to get my boards done. I basically took all the stuff from the web banner and hashed it together. It's a little incorrect and inconsistant because normally its individual bookstores such as waterstones that chose to advertise the product, but at least I've considered how physical advertising might work in the real world.
Design for digital progress
Here's some quick development for the web banners now I have some high quality product shots to show off the physical release, because the purely digital images weren't doing the product justice. I basically messed around with the layout until I could find something that kept in the tradition of the web banners for the penguin website. They use times for headers and gill sans for the body copy on the banners, so I utilized this and got to something I was happy with, then it was a case of placing it in context. Other places it could go: WH smiths, Amazon, Blackwell's and the book depository. These mock ups could go on a design board about context.
From there I looked at the websites for iBook and a popular eBook site. These two had their own web banner formats and so i merely recreated these. They're not brilliant but I have other things to focus on and they're passable.
From there I looked at the websites for iBook and a popular eBook site. These two had their own web banner formats and so i merely recreated these. They're not brilliant but I have other things to focus on and they're passable.
Design board layout development
After scrapping the layout of the first set of design boards, heres just some quick documentation of the progression I made, I deleted the black border in order to give the boards more space for the product to breathe and increase the scale for the sake of detail. I started using the john steinbeck collection logo as a header, but realised that if I placed this at the bottom with the rest of the text, again I increase the amount of space I can devote to imagery.
And so this is where I'm at with layout for now.
And so this is where I'm at with layout for now.
Screen printing outer packaging, new photoshoot etc.
Heres my first attempt at foil-blocking the packaging, the screen was a bit gunked up so as you can see, the results are a bit rough. I wasn't happy so I tried again.
Heres the second attempt assembled in product shots. It's a much better print and I'm really satisfied with the results. In fact, I'm so happy with the reults this time, that I'm going to hand in my product as well, rather than just propose it.Here's some more stuff I'm going to put on my boards too:
Here is the books photographed in a way that I talked about in a previous post. I can use this photo to begin designing web banners for the physical release.
bookmarks
Posters:
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Prep and crit
Ok, so I printed my book covers, but I'm a dipstick and I forgot to change the names in the spines which has totally bummed me out. Anyway, I photoshopped it for the design boards below. At this stage, foil-blocking wasn't really an option, I thought I'd propose it, so I photo-shopped it onto a blank box, ready for the crit. I thought it looked ok, but not very convincing, so at this point with a little time, I'm going to try and actually foil-block or at least screen-print with some silver ink to give a more realistic impression.
Here's the boards laid out with the stuff I have for them so far. They look OK, I tried to mock them up to look a little like the book layouts but I'm not keen and will try something simpler and less space consuming, though I think the splash board works effectively. There's typos everywhere though so I need to correct that for the actual boards. I think that the way the books are photographed on the product board is very limiting and flat, I might try and re-take pictures once I've reprinted the books with the correct spines so they're upright at an angle like books are presented on the penguin web banners, then I can transpose them as product shots into web design.
Crit feedback (Tim and ed, Adam and Linds):
Blog:
-I haven't updated enough recently, which is fair comment, though I'm actively doing that right now. I guess an issue I've had, which I need to address for the next project I do, is that I've been so hectic trying to organise the project into shape, I haven't taken time out to properly record the different things I've been doing.
-Theres a lot of good development once I've got onto the computer, but there's not much recorded sheet-work. My answer to that is, I didn't do a lot of sheet work, I thumbnailed and then wanted to get stuck right in testing and trying layouts and colours. I'm not going to pretend thats what I did, if it effects my grade then it does, but I'm not going to pretend about that.
-Good analysis.
Boards:
-Well laid out
-Clear and concise
-splash board looks good.
-A lot of typos and wording needs to be more considered... which is a fair point and I'm going to address that as soon as possible.
Design for digital
Here is my development for proposing digital release for the book covers, starting with the iBook, I wasn't satisfied with all the white space between the book cover border and the edge of the iPad, I also wanted to show how it might work as a book rather than just stick my book on the screens of everything I could find, so I inroduced a title page. I then stuck the covers inside iPhone screens to suggest wallpapers or perhaps even an eBook application for iPhone. I also mocked up the iBook shelf and how the covrs would sit in this once purchased. I'm very happy with the results of all of those, I think the strength of my covers and the clarityof the illustrations and simplicity of the type mean that they transfer very well to digital format. Less impresive s my frst attempt at web banners. They just don't look that strong and I think I need some strong product shots to lay them out in a similar fashion to the penguin website (pictured below)
And here is a proposal for how the book cover could work in a digital setting. I asked Will if ti was possible to capture the motion of the page moving and put it in an iphone. He offered to do it, here are the results and they're excellent, so cheers Will. bloody good work.
And here is a proposal for how the book cover could work in a digital setting. I asked Will if ti was possible to capture the motion of the page moving and put it in an iphone. He offered to do it, here are the results and they're excellent, so cheers Will. bloody good work.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Bookmark tweaking
This is just ever so slight tweaks to the bookmark layouts that I designed ina previous post, basically just positioning the type so it isn't too close to the border and giving everything on them a bit of space to breathe, so I'll print those and see where I'm at after that.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Poster development
Here's the layouts for some posters that I plan to be given out point of sale at stores that would distribute. I went with a few different things, but I think that what would sell, would be the poster designs that are literally larger versions of the book covers, this gives them a more collectible nature than redesigning them. So I'm going to go to drop in on monday and print these off.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Net-making, stock-testing,crit-doing goodness.
Ok, so getting close to the end of book cover layout design, with a few tweaks to go. I thought it best to really work out the packaging and how it's going to work. I mocked a net up a few posts back on my blog, so I used this as a foundation. However, I got my measurements wrong, so I remeasured it the width of all the books to be 67mm. So I made a net using this and the book dimensions of 128mm x 195mm. This is the first one of the photos. Unfortunately the measurement was very tight and realistically wouldn't fit all the books in it. I rounded the measurements up, so it became 130 x 200 x 77 to give it more space. This seemed to fit pretty well, and including covers, postcards and/or bookmarks, it'll fit a little more snugly.
From here, I thought it best to start looking at packaging design, what I did and didn't want from my packaging.
I started looking at using the covers on the outer packaging, but I just felt that with al the vivid colours on the books, that this was a bit much and that minimalism was the best approach. I also tried a photo and biography of John Steinbeck, but I thought this was a bit cliche and unnecessary. I decided to stick with type and looked at both Clarendon and Calibri, which I'd narrowed it down to. However, after printing on stocks I'm leaning towards Clarendon, the contrast between the angular nature of serifs and the smooth vectors is quite nice and ensures the type doesn't get lost in the design, where as with calibri, for me, personally, it's all a little too smooth. Going with this and wanting simplicity,I experimented with laying it out in different ways and alignments, settling for 42 point, central aligned with an underscore, which looked nicer than big areas of space sitting between the letters. I really want to experiment with foil block/spot varnish for this. The last two nets in the PDF are for print, one is for white type to spot varnish over. With the other blank net, I can try spot varnish with no type underneath and also foil blocking.
I also did a quick few bookmark layouts.
I quickly googled what the usual formats are for bookmarks and a few websites (on context blog) suggested 2inch x 6 inch. This fit within the covers nicely and is a good dimension to work with, visually. I hate the attempt to cram all the covers in on one bookmark and feel that this would be a disappointing looking bookmark. The plan then becomes to have a bookmark of each cover inside each book, allowing me to apply the design across a range. I really like the last one, it reflects the book covers and the outer packaging quite well and it's nicely laid out. I might just tweak the font size a little it could also be good to spot varnish/foil block these. So more to come with that. In terms of other promotional material, it's a toss up between a poster and a postcard. As the target audience myself, I know that I enjoy posters and throw away postcards which suggests, that's what I should make. However, there are issues with putting a poster of A3 or A2 format in small packaging: it will be folded (a lot) and the folds will be an irregular format making it look uneven. To y mind this suggests that posters should be shipped separately and provided at point of sale rather than within the packaging. My advertising can promote the free poster too. I also need to think about promotional material for digital delivery, I'll probably look at that in the next post.
And here's some experimentation with all the stocks available to us at college.
This is thick card, I thought it might be good to use this instead of thin paper to make it more durable and in a real product situation, I would use a card stock. However, this college card stock is horrible, it soaks up a lot of the ink because it's uncoated and the grainy texture really doesn't suit the crisp-ness of my designs.
The matte stock that I procured form digital dungeon was much better in terms of colour qaulity, however, it does scratch really easily, which suggests to me that although I'm most likely going to go with this stock, in a live brief I'd source a more durable paper stock that doesn't damage quite so easily.
This is bulky newsprint, I tried it because it looked awesome on Gasi's books, however mine are a very different kettle of fish, and again the colour quality suffering, really isn't good for what I'm trying to do. Also a thin stock isn't brilliant for a cover, it needs to be weight and durable.
The stocks above and below are water colour paper and slate sugar paper respectively, and they gave me some of the most god-awful finishes I've ever seen, it's fair to say I won't use them.
Solution: Use the matte stock available in college, but explore other paper stocks on context blog, find out what they are, chose one and spec it out on the design board.
Here's my crit feedback form:
Mostly it's about the typography. I'm no expert on type (I want to understand more, hence this project), so I take other's opinions very seriously. With that in mind, heres a pdf of my response tweaking, written within that is a lot of explanation so please ensure you read the text too, if you want to know what the hell I'm doing. Also, I made the column a little wider than it was before, so more words fit on a line.
From here, I laid out the bar codes in illustrator to ensure it was consistantly in the same place throughout. I also ammended the rabbit to a mouse on the advice of some crit feedback, which is was that in terms of concept it's a bit jarring because the others seem a little more literal (other than tortilla flat) because the title has the word mouse in it, where as the image is the image of a rabbit. In the book though, there is an exchange between George and Lenny about him holding onto a dead mouse, so having a mouse makes sense conceptually and as a literal interpretation of the title, so I'm going to go with this.
What to do from here?
-Make some templates for spot varnishing the covers and foil blocking/spot varnishing the packaging for testing out tomorrow.
-Try different things for packaging: black paper on card? print out on card? laminated card? laminated print on card?
-finalise promotional material ready for print booked at tomorrow at 4.
-explore the digital side of things
-and look at advertising and potential in store promotion layout.
From this I can start mocking up my boards.
From here, I thought it best to start looking at packaging design, what I did and didn't want from my packaging.
I started looking at using the covers on the outer packaging, but I just felt that with al the vivid colours on the books, that this was a bit much and that minimalism was the best approach. I also tried a photo and biography of John Steinbeck, but I thought this was a bit cliche and unnecessary. I decided to stick with type and looked at both Clarendon and Calibri, which I'd narrowed it down to. However, after printing on stocks I'm leaning towards Clarendon, the contrast between the angular nature of serifs and the smooth vectors is quite nice and ensures the type doesn't get lost in the design, where as with calibri, for me, personally, it's all a little too smooth. Going with this and wanting simplicity,I experimented with laying it out in different ways and alignments, settling for 42 point, central aligned with an underscore, which looked nicer than big areas of space sitting between the letters. I really want to experiment with foil block/spot varnish for this. The last two nets in the PDF are for print, one is for white type to spot varnish over. With the other blank net, I can try spot varnish with no type underneath and also foil blocking.
I also did a quick few bookmark layouts.
I quickly googled what the usual formats are for bookmarks and a few websites (on context blog) suggested 2inch x 6 inch. This fit within the covers nicely and is a good dimension to work with, visually. I hate the attempt to cram all the covers in on one bookmark and feel that this would be a disappointing looking bookmark. The plan then becomes to have a bookmark of each cover inside each book, allowing me to apply the design across a range. I really like the last one, it reflects the book covers and the outer packaging quite well and it's nicely laid out. I might just tweak the font size a little it could also be good to spot varnish/foil block these. So more to come with that. In terms of other promotional material, it's a toss up between a poster and a postcard. As the target audience myself, I know that I enjoy posters and throw away postcards which suggests, that's what I should make. However, there are issues with putting a poster of A3 or A2 format in small packaging: it will be folded (a lot) and the folds will be an irregular format making it look uneven. To y mind this suggests that posters should be shipped separately and provided at point of sale rather than within the packaging. My advertising can promote the free poster too. I also need to think about promotional material for digital delivery, I'll probably look at that in the next post.
And here's some experimentation with all the stocks available to us at college.
This is thick card, I thought it might be good to use this instead of thin paper to make it more durable and in a real product situation, I would use a card stock. However, this college card stock is horrible, it soaks up a lot of the ink because it's uncoated and the grainy texture really doesn't suit the crisp-ness of my designs.
The matte stock that I procured form digital dungeon was much better in terms of colour qaulity, however, it does scratch really easily, which suggests to me that although I'm most likely going to go with this stock, in a live brief I'd source a more durable paper stock that doesn't damage quite so easily.
This is bulky newsprint, I tried it because it looked awesome on Gasi's books, however mine are a very different kettle of fish, and again the colour quality suffering, really isn't good for what I'm trying to do. Also a thin stock isn't brilliant for a cover, it needs to be weight and durable.
The stocks above and below are water colour paper and slate sugar paper respectively, and they gave me some of the most god-awful finishes I've ever seen, it's fair to say I won't use them.
Solution: Use the matte stock available in college, but explore other paper stocks on context blog, find out what they are, chose one and spec it out on the design board.
Here's my crit feedback form:
Mostly it's about the typography. I'm no expert on type (I want to understand more, hence this project), so I take other's opinions very seriously. With that in mind, heres a pdf of my response tweaking, written within that is a lot of explanation so please ensure you read the text too, if you want to know what the hell I'm doing. Also, I made the column a little wider than it was before, so more words fit on a line.
From here, I laid out the bar codes in illustrator to ensure it was consistantly in the same place throughout. I also ammended the rabbit to a mouse on the advice of some crit feedback, which is was that in terms of concept it's a bit jarring because the others seem a little more literal (other than tortilla flat) because the title has the word mouse in it, where as the image is the image of a rabbit. In the book though, there is an exchange between George and Lenny about him holding onto a dead mouse, so having a mouse makes sense conceptually and as a literal interpretation of the title, so I'm going to go with this.
What to do from here?
-Make some templates for spot varnishing the covers and foil blocking/spot varnishing the packaging for testing out tomorrow.
-Try different things for packaging: black paper on card? print out on card? laminated card? laminated print on card?
-finalise promotional material ready for print booked at tomorrow at 4.
-explore the digital side of things
-and look at advertising and potential in store promotion layout.
From this I can start mocking up my boards.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Layouts, final colour and type choices.
So, initially I looked at the spines again based on the feedback I got, which was no to the pictograms on the side and yes to the block colour, perhaps having John Steinbeck in a large font across the spines. I tried this and hated it, it just seems a little clunky and a compromise to the simplicity of the design elsewhere on the book layouts. I liked the block colour on one spine, but then applying it to all the spines, it seemed a little intense and full on. I removed this and kept the very simple typography at the top. I thought this worked simply and effectively, and I'm more inclined to go with this.
After this I felt I should try and get towards a final resolution for the covers so I can begin testing stocks and finishing techniques tomorrow. Giving me plenty of time to have everything done by next week's crit. Here's the final images with a few font and colour variances. I narrowed it down to Gill Sans and Calibri, I liked the way these looked, but to my surprise, Clarendon appears to be a front-runner again. I didn't want serif, but I can't help it, I love the way Clarendon looks. I'm going to get opinions on a few peers tomorrow first thing and go for it.
The PDF looks a little different to the illustrator/indesign files. The fonts have a 0.25 weight on them here and there and this seems a lot bulkier on the PDF, this could be problematic and I need to play with the way this looks/the way the black ink will bleed to ensure a fully legible book design.
Finally, I thought I'd piece together what a net would look like for the packaging that my peers said I should go for. I'm going to try a few prototypes out tomorrow as well, ahead of wednesdays 'show and tell' style crit.
After this I felt I should try and get towards a final resolution for the covers so I can begin testing stocks and finishing techniques tomorrow. Giving me plenty of time to have everything done by next week's crit. Here's the final images with a few font and colour variances. I narrowed it down to Gill Sans and Calibri, I liked the way these looked, but to my surprise, Clarendon appears to be a front-runner again. I didn't want serif, but I can't help it, I love the way Clarendon looks. I'm going to get opinions on a few peers tomorrow first thing and go for it.
The PDF looks a little different to the illustrator/indesign files. The fonts have a 0.25 weight on them here and there and this seems a lot bulkier on the PDF, this could be problematic and I need to play with the way this looks/the way the black ink will bleed to ensure a fully legible book design.
Finally, I thought I'd piece together what a net would look like for the packaging that my peers said I should go for. I'm going to try a few prototypes out tomorrow as well, ahead of wednesdays 'show and tell' style crit.
Of Mice And Men and East of Eden ideas
Ok so I had to move quite quickly from here on out. below are a few different ideas for Of Mice And Men. I didn't really experiment with colour as I usually do, firstly because I was being quick, and secondly I'm really fond of that blue, so I'm going to try and stick with it, though I might play around with a few variant shades. Out of the designs below, the one that works least, to me, is the two hands side by side. It isn't very strong, it was supposed to eb a statement about the size of Lenny and the size of George, and hands as a symbol of friendship, but it just looks like a child and adult hand, instead of an adult and giant hand. I'm really fond of the mice in the hands, it sums up the title well, using imagery of mice and men and echoes an important metaphor of a rabbit that Lenny kills by accident, rubbing it in his hands too hard. I think it works better than the rabbit, which doesn't sit well in the hands, though that might just be because it needs a bit of tinkering. I'm also a fan of the two figures, George and Lenny looking onto a path ahead, which really summarises the plot of traveling towards a dream quite well. So it's between that and the mouse in the hands, so I'm going to ask for feedback tomorrow before printing these on different stocks.
With the East of Eden designs, I really did struggle to think of things, it's all about a reflection of the story of Cain and Abel, and the story of Adam and Eve, a contemplation on human sn, good and evil. The apple reflects the idea of Eden, whilst splitting it into black and white is supposed to represent the difference between good and evil in the book. I think it works quite effectively, though if I go for the splatted grapes for the Grapes of Wrath, it's going to look like a series of books about fruit, so thats something to be careful about. I really am fond of the tree idea, it still needs a bit of tinkering to get it looking quite right but I think I nearly got there towards the end. It reflects the idea of good vs. bad and the stories in Genesis quite well, whilst still reflecting the title, so I'm quite happy about that. I'm not too keen on the profiles, though they do represent Cain and Abel-type characters quite well, they're not particularly aesthetically pleasing to me. Again, I'm going to get opinions before trying them out on stocks.
With the East of Eden designs, I really did struggle to think of things, it's all about a reflection of the story of Cain and Abel, and the story of Adam and Eve, a contemplation on human sn, good and evil. The apple reflects the idea of Eden, whilst splitting it into black and white is supposed to represent the difference between good and evil in the book. I think it works quite effectively, though if I go for the splatted grapes for the Grapes of Wrath, it's going to look like a series of books about fruit, so thats something to be careful about. I really am fond of the tree idea, it still needs a bit of tinkering to get it looking quite right but I think I nearly got there towards the end. It reflects the idea of good vs. bad and the stories in Genesis quite well, whilst still reflecting the title, so I'm quite happy about that. I'm not too keen on the profiles, though they do represent Cain and Abel-type characters quite well, they're not particularly aesthetically pleasing to me. Again, I'm going to get opinions before trying them out on stocks.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Crit Feedback and responses
OK, so we had a crit on wednesday, here are some of the feedback-y bits and a few responses to that.
I displayed:
-latest layouts that are on the blog to date (black and white)
-different cover images for both tortilla flat and the grapes of wrath (full colour)
-different spine layouts
-different back cover layouts
Questions I asked:
-Out of the layouts displayed, which works most effectively?
-which font works the best?
-which spine layout works the best?
-which packaging should I use?
-What do you reckon I should do about promotional material?
They also had an opportunity to look at my blog. Here is the feedback form they gave me:
Summary of feedback
-Essentially the main focus of what they were saying is that they thought the designs I'd shown were a ittle 'safe' compared to the designs in the earlier stages that were on my blog. Particularly those with diagonal layouts.
-In terms of spines, they suggested avoiding the pictograms on the side, which I was initially fond of, but I think they're right, it's a bit much. They were fans of the block colour rectangle, which could create a strong visual presence on the shelves. I am inclined to agree with this.
-In terms of the packaging ideas (though very rough, see above image) that I'd shown, I was keen on the Belly band because it gives me an opportunity to write in larger fonts along the spines which would be better for advertising the books and having them stand out, because in all the book stores I've visited, the spines are the only thing on show at the shelves, you don't see the covers till you get the books out. However, they suggested (quite rightly) that this would make the packaging rather disposable rather than of a special edition, which is kind of what I was going for, instead they suggested using the open-sided box and perhaps writing the author's name across all of the spines of the book.
-The font they seemed to respond to the best was Gill Sans, however I personally felt like fonts are something I explored the least, something I've rectified in the PDF below.
-They also suggested looking at a wider range of colour options, which is something I already thought I needed to do.
-In terms of promotional material, it was discussed and agreed that the best materials would be ones that I could put inside the packaging postcards and bookmarks,
In response to some of that feedback I started lookng at the diagonal layouts again. Here's a few things I came up with, though I'm really not keen on them, at all. I just can't get into them, they're more difficult to read, and even though they're diagonal, they don't feel any more contemporary or dynamic to me, I'm afraid. I also think that very simple layout with strong imagery, whilst maybe not revolutionary, is the most effective way to communicate ideas, the average reader isn't going to look at the diagonal layout and see that as a nice 'quirk', most likely unless it does something special because of that layout (something i can't seem to think of) it won't mean much more to them than a simple, nicely laid out image. From this, I decided for now to go with the simplest layout I had so I could explore different fonts, something I haven't done enough of. I tried out a lot, and from those I think I like the way the sans serif fonts look better than serif fonts, and from those I like both Gill Sans and Calibri the most. I went with the grapes because the idea is quite resonant in terms of summing up the plot and creating strong imagery for first time readers of the books. I think though, this image could do with a lot of tinkering, just to get it right and to a standard of which I approve.
I displayed:
-latest layouts that are on the blog to date (black and white)
-different cover images for both tortilla flat and the grapes of wrath (full colour)
-different spine layouts
-different back cover layouts
Questions I asked:
-Out of the layouts displayed, which works most effectively?
-which font works the best?
-which spine layout works the best?
-which packaging should I use?
-What do you reckon I should do about promotional material?
They also had an opportunity to look at my blog. Here is the feedback form they gave me:
Summary of feedback
-Essentially the main focus of what they were saying is that they thought the designs I'd shown were a ittle 'safe' compared to the designs in the earlier stages that were on my blog. Particularly those with diagonal layouts.
-In terms of spines, they suggested avoiding the pictograms on the side, which I was initially fond of, but I think they're right, it's a bit much. They were fans of the block colour rectangle, which could create a strong visual presence on the shelves. I am inclined to agree with this.
-In terms of the packaging ideas (though very rough, see above image) that I'd shown, I was keen on the Belly band because it gives me an opportunity to write in larger fonts along the spines which would be better for advertising the books and having them stand out, because in all the book stores I've visited, the spines are the only thing on show at the shelves, you don't see the covers till you get the books out. However, they suggested (quite rightly) that this would make the packaging rather disposable rather than of a special edition, which is kind of what I was going for, instead they suggested using the open-sided box and perhaps writing the author's name across all of the spines of the book.
-The font they seemed to respond to the best was Gill Sans, however I personally felt like fonts are something I explored the least, something I've rectified in the PDF below.
-They also suggested looking at a wider range of colour options, which is something I already thought I needed to do.
-In terms of promotional material, it was discussed and agreed that the best materials would be ones that I could put inside the packaging postcards and bookmarks,
In response to some of that feedback I started lookng at the diagonal layouts again. Here's a few things I came up with, though I'm really not keen on them, at all. I just can't get into them, they're more difficult to read, and even though they're diagonal, they don't feel any more contemporary or dynamic to me, I'm afraid. I also think that very simple layout with strong imagery, whilst maybe not revolutionary, is the most effective way to communicate ideas, the average reader isn't going to look at the diagonal layout and see that as a nice 'quirk', most likely unless it does something special because of that layout (something i can't seem to think of) it won't mean much more to them than a simple, nicely laid out image. From this, I decided for now to go with the simplest layout I had so I could explore different fonts, something I haven't done enough of. I tried out a lot, and from those I think I like the way the sans serif fonts look better than serif fonts, and from those I like both Gill Sans and Calibri the most. I went with the grapes because the idea is quite resonant in terms of summing up the plot and creating strong imagery for first time readers of the books. I think though, this image could do with a lot of tinkering, just to get it right and to a standard of which I approve.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Book cover layouts
Ok, so based on where I;m at, here are a few possible layouts for back covers, I like how understated they are, simplistic like the covers seem to be shaping up to be. Again, I've used a range of fonts, Times being my least favourite and me being tied between Helvetica Neue, Clarendon and Gill Sans for what works the most. I think I'm going to try a bit more diverse a range of layouts, but I really like the way it forms a small tidy block of justified type. Let's see what the people who know more about the type say.
Spine layouts
Based on where I'm at with the covers, here is a massive bunch of spine layout possibilities. Mostly they play around with the type and where it's at. I'm really fond of the little coloured pictograms on the top/bottom of some of them, I think they look quite striking and would make a spine look quite appealing from a distance, now, depending on packaging, it is probable the spine will be the first thing the customer sees, making this a useful asset. It also makes it seem like the best bet is to stick them on the top of the book as a pose to the bottom, so it's more immediate to the customer. I tried a few different fonts; gill sans, Clarendon, helvetica neue, futura and times. I like all of them except times and find it really hard to chose so that's something to mention in the crits. Also the good thing is, when the cover is decided upon, this can be decided upon properly and then I have a proper format for all my books and I can design my packaging, then I can make it by next week so that will be dandy.
EDIT: The first page should be like this, with helvetica neue at the bottom, not clarendon twice.
EDIT: The first page should be like this, with helvetica neue at the bottom, not clarendon twice.
Best design layouts, for crit.
I'm going to try and print most of these off at a reduced size, as well as a few at actual size so I can show range and scale.
I've made a few alterations and ammendments to the images themselves too. The cars, for instance now have baggage-like shapes on the roofs and at the sides to make them look more like they're transporting a lot of people's lives. I like this better and thinks it says more cohesively. I also like the way that the road stretches out over the boarder in these and the walking pictures to demonstrate the distance or the ongoing nature of the journey. The fonts I've used are predominantly Gill sans, but the ones in the top left use helvetica neue and the serif font is clarendon. Obviously I could experiment more (I'm going to change the fonts up after the crit tomorrow and see how it goes), I did start using a font called saddlebag which looked kind of old western... but I thought this was a bit cheesy and I'm going to try and stick to non-decorative fonts. I'm really pleased with them as layouts, I really think they look strong, I just need some guidance on which to pick now.
I've made a few alterations and ammendments to the images themselves too. The cars, for instance now have baggage-like shapes on the roofs and at the sides to make them look more like they're transporting a lot of people's lives. I like this better and thinks it says more cohesively. I also like the way that the road stretches out over the boarder in these and the walking pictures to demonstrate the distance or the ongoing nature of the journey. The fonts I've used are predominantly Gill sans, but the ones in the top left use helvetica neue and the serif font is clarendon. Obviously I could experiment more (I'm going to change the fonts up after the crit tomorrow and see how it goes), I did start using a font called saddlebag which looked kind of old western... but I thought this was a bit cheesy and I'm going to try and stick to non-decorative fonts. I'm really pleased with them as layouts, I really think they look strong, I just need some guidance on which to pick now.
Tortilla Flat
Continuing the layouts and stylistic choices that I found successful in the Grapes of Wrath sets I looked at, I began exploring imagery appropriate to the book Tortilla Flat, which unlike the book Grapes of Wrath, didn't seem to conjure any arresting imagery to summarise the title. The plot is about a group of drunk friends described fondly despite their antics regularly involving thievery. I wanted imagery that reflected the themes of alcoholism and thievery. Here are my layouts and imagery based on that:
These are the thumbnails I quickly did suggesting some different areas that I could go with it. The wine glass, which seems a little formal for a bunch of Mexican drunks, the wine bottle, which has a few possibilities in the way it's explored, The 'Day Of The Dead' skull, decorated with symbols for money and alcoholism, which ties in the theme that these people are of Mexican descent with the other two ideas. The bag of coins, which in the book is a symbol for the group's friendship.
I started developing ways to do a wine bottle, seeing it as quite an apt symbol to summise the book. I liked the plain one I started with but decided I should try a label, which looked ok, especially with an old day of the dead skull I did for another project aplied to it, but it looked better plain. The addition of the cork looked quite nice with the stark white and black holes. I then experimented with what the wine would look like inside, exploring both block fill and a patterned wave effect. I thought the patterned texture was a nice bit of detail and decided to go with that.
Having used a skull on the wine bottle for a brief period, I thought I'd play around with it and maybe use just that for the book cover and try it out. I played around a bit, but it was all looking a bit busy untill Jonny Packham suggested that I should put the Dollar signs in the skulls eyes, which represents the theme of coveting possessions and money that goes throughout the book. With the wine bottle on the forhead, representing the alcoholism too, I think it works quite nicely as an image and looks quite strong.
These are the thumbnails I quickly did suggesting some different areas that I could go with it. The wine glass, which seems a little formal for a bunch of Mexican drunks, the wine bottle, which has a few possibilities in the way it's explored, The 'Day Of The Dead' skull, decorated with symbols for money and alcoholism, which ties in the theme that these people are of Mexican descent with the other two ideas. The bag of coins, which in the book is a symbol for the group's friendship.
I started developing ways to do a wine bottle, seeing it as quite an apt symbol to summise the book. I liked the plain one I started with but decided I should try a label, which looked ok, especially with an old day of the dead skull I did for another project aplied to it, but it looked better plain. The addition of the cork looked quite nice with the stark white and black holes. I then experimented with what the wine would look like inside, exploring both block fill and a patterned wave effect. I thought the patterned texture was a nice bit of detail and decided to go with that.
I looked at applying this across a range of layouts, I like the simple ones on quite a clasic layout the best, I'm not too keen on the diagonals, I think it's a bit much. I also like the dea of showing the bottle empty and then smash. It's just a mirror of the grapes of wrath idea I had and in some way symbolises the nature of alcoholism. I don't think this is necessarily appropriate to the book though, the characters are portrayed in quite a positive manner. Imagery of the botte mostly empty with the cork still in are most satisfying to me.
Having used a skull on the wine bottle for a brief period, I thought I'd play around with it and maybe use just that for the book cover and try it out. I played around a bit, but it was all looking a bit busy untill Jonny Packham suggested that I should put the Dollar signs in the skulls eyes, which represents the theme of coveting possessions and money that goes throughout the book. With the wine bottle on the forhead, representing the alcoholism too, I think it works quite nicely as an image and looks quite strong.
Open publication - Free publishing - More tortilla flat
I then applied this to a range of designs again, using multiple copies to try and look at different ways that could work, but I think it looked strongest with just one skull. Again I'm a fan of it on the more traditional layouts, they have a clarity to them. Also the one colour seems to work really nicely. I'm going to ask in the crit tomorrow for opinions on which ones seem to work the best.
I teh wanted to do a bag of coins, a nice metaphor in the book and a strong bit of imagery that stands out, to be honest what I came up with was pretty poor, they could of been eggs or potatos which is kind of lame. I came up with the idea of summarising it with a coin that ties all these themes together, so I got a picture of a Mexican coin and traced the outlines of the edge detail and added floral reef to make it look less bare.
I then applied this to a range of designs again, using multiple copies to try and look at different ways that could work, but I think it looked strongest with just one skull. Again I'm a fan of it on the more traditional layouts, they have a clarity to them. Also the one colour seems to work really nicely. I'm going to ask in the crit tomorrow for opinions on which ones seem to work the best.
I teh wanted to do a bag of coins, a nice metaphor in the book and a strong bit of imagery that stands out, to be honest what I came up with was pretty poor, they could of been eggs or potatos which is kind of lame. I came up with the idea of summarising it with a coin that ties all these themes together, so I got a picture of a Mexican coin and traced the outlines of the edge detail and added floral reef to make it look less bare.
Open publication - Free publishing - More tortilla flat
I Think the coin idea is a very strong one, however the first few are far too crowded, the ones with the bottle rather than the skull look grotesque. It's not until the bottom left that I feel like it's a well resolved image in it's self. It works best, again, on more traditional cover layout, I thin it's because to my mind, that gives you the best balance between contemporary book illustration and the layouts penguin usually put out, making it a good fit for Penguin.
So... what do I do from here.. I pick 3 layouts I think work well, put the different images into all of them and mess around with the fonts. Come out with between 6-10 possible book covers of each title for the crit-ers to look at. Then another few to demonstrate colour choices. I think that's best as a pose to printing all of them off in thumbnail form and there not being enough detail held for them to make a decision.
I Think the coin idea is a very strong one, however the first few are far too crowded, the ones with the bottle rather than the skull look grotesque. It's not until the bottom left that I feel like it's a well resolved image in it's self. It works best, again, on more traditional cover layout, I thin it's because to my mind, that gives you the best balance between contemporary book illustration and the layouts penguin usually put out, making it a good fit for Penguin.
So... what do I do from here.. I pick 3 layouts I think work well, put the different images into all of them and mess around with the fonts. Come out with between 6-10 possible book covers of each title for the crit-ers to look at. Then another few to demonstrate colour choices. I think that's best as a pose to printing all of them off in thumbnail form and there not being enough detail held for them to make a decision.
Monday, May 10, 2010
The Grapes Of Wrath, Layouts and dveleopment.
OK, so I started with the few thumbnails of diferent ideas that I had for what could go on the cover:
I thought about the plot, which deals with migration over rural America, so I tried to embody this with people across fields and people walking, as well as cars (featured in the story as a pose to the more metaphorical walking). I thought there'd be interesting design in there. I also looked at the literal embodiment of the title, using grapes and the idea of them being crushed in anger. I also showed this through a progression of non-crushed to fully splattered grapes, an attempt to reflect the plot that sees the workers go from bad to worse, until there's a stillborn birth and the ultimately hopeful ending is the mother to the stillborn breastfeeding a starving man (bleak stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.)
I tried to stay away from my traditional move toward illustration, first focusing on type and layout. I feel like I've exhausted my patience with actual drawing over the past few months and I want to focus on type skills and become a bit more well rounded as well as avoid falling into the 'illustrator' category. Prove my worth with more full and rounded design. Here's a PDF of various different layouts with space left to potentially include images. I just did it in purple because I was going to work with the grapes idea first after that and that seemed an appropriate choice. I like the idea of using black/white(stock)/another spot colour... the limited colour palette will work well as a series, I'm still not sure as to whether I should use one colour for the whole series or different colours for each novel. Hopefully as I progress, I can play around with this idea.
And here is the grapes idea. I think that the progression of grapes looks the most visually striking and I'm really pleased with how it looks in the three colour system. For some reason the grapes looked awful in purple so I didn't feature them here. The all black grapes in the diagonal cover look awful, I think mainly because I overlooked what I was doing with the splatter and there's one grape seemingly untouched which is really jarring. I'm not going to amend it because it's unlikely I'll go with it. The colour choices all work to me, the more vibrant they appear to be, the more the design (to my eye) really pops. I quite like the reddish colour because it sort of represents anger or wrath.
Then I thought I'd try out some different pure typographical layouts, they look alright to me, but I don't know enough about type to really 'get it.' Still I'll ask for some feedback from David Gasi and Will Asken, they've done the type module and can really help with things like that.
Moving on from this quite quickly, I again picked out the layouts I liked the best from the first pdf on this page and started messing around with the cars migrating idea. I traced a photograph of an old car I got off of the internet which still feels like cheating somehow to me. I was really pleased with the results and loved the way the windows and wing mirrors stood out. As I did the images, I realised the purple I started with for the grapes wasn't really working, it wasn't giving the sens of migrating across the countryside because the colours didn't really compute with maise/corn fields like it expects to.. i added some corn like shapes down one side of the road on one image but it didn't help. I think this is somewhat resolved when I changed to yellow and amber colours. However, I think more could be done, like adding baggage to the cars to get a sense of migration perhaps? Anyway, in terms of the individual layouts, I'm not sure which one I like the best and this is something I can get feedback on in the crit I guess.
I then amended this to people walking across the countryside, I think this works metaphorically, I'm not sure whether I like ti better as one man or the group, the group suits the story of a family more, though the man staring out to the path ahead sort of reflects the optimism of the family at the beginning, again this is something to get feedback on in the crit, though I think because of the limited colour palette, they all look reasonably strong. This one also works quite well in purple suprisingly, maybe because the theme has more clarity.
OK, so I'm going to start working on Tortilla Flat, because I have some really good ideas for that. I hope that the feedback in crit is helpful in terms of carrying on in this direction because I think they look really strong.
I thought about the plot, which deals with migration over rural America, so I tried to embody this with people across fields and people walking, as well as cars (featured in the story as a pose to the more metaphorical walking). I thought there'd be interesting design in there. I also looked at the literal embodiment of the title, using grapes and the idea of them being crushed in anger. I also showed this through a progression of non-crushed to fully splattered grapes, an attempt to reflect the plot that sees the workers go from bad to worse, until there's a stillborn birth and the ultimately hopeful ending is the mother to the stillborn breastfeeding a starving man (bleak stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.)
I tried to stay away from my traditional move toward illustration, first focusing on type and layout. I feel like I've exhausted my patience with actual drawing over the past few months and I want to focus on type skills and become a bit more well rounded as well as avoid falling into the 'illustrator' category. Prove my worth with more full and rounded design. Here's a PDF of various different layouts with space left to potentially include images. I just did it in purple because I was going to work with the grapes idea first after that and that seemed an appropriate choice. I like the idea of using black/white(stock)/another spot colour... the limited colour palette will work well as a series, I'm still not sure as to whether I should use one colour for the whole series or different colours for each novel. Hopefully as I progress, I can play around with this idea.
And here is the grapes idea. I think that the progression of grapes looks the most visually striking and I'm really pleased with how it looks in the three colour system. For some reason the grapes looked awful in purple so I didn't feature them here. The all black grapes in the diagonal cover look awful, I think mainly because I overlooked what I was doing with the splatter and there's one grape seemingly untouched which is really jarring. I'm not going to amend it because it's unlikely I'll go with it. The colour choices all work to me, the more vibrant they appear to be, the more the design (to my eye) really pops. I quite like the reddish colour because it sort of represents anger or wrath.
Then I thought I'd try out some different pure typographical layouts, they look alright to me, but I don't know enough about type to really 'get it.' Still I'll ask for some feedback from David Gasi and Will Asken, they've done the type module and can really help with things like that.
Moving on from this quite quickly, I again picked out the layouts I liked the best from the first pdf on this page and started messing around with the cars migrating idea. I traced a photograph of an old car I got off of the internet which still feels like cheating somehow to me. I was really pleased with the results and loved the way the windows and wing mirrors stood out. As I did the images, I realised the purple I started with for the grapes wasn't really working, it wasn't giving the sens of migrating across the countryside because the colours didn't really compute with maise/corn fields like it expects to.. i added some corn like shapes down one side of the road on one image but it didn't help. I think this is somewhat resolved when I changed to yellow and amber colours. However, I think more could be done, like adding baggage to the cars to get a sense of migration perhaps? Anyway, in terms of the individual layouts, I'm not sure which one I like the best and this is something I can get feedback on in the crit I guess.
I then amended this to people walking across the countryside, I think this works metaphorically, I'm not sure whether I like ti better as one man or the group, the group suits the story of a family more, though the man staring out to the path ahead sort of reflects the optimism of the family at the beginning, again this is something to get feedback on in the crit, though I think because of the limited colour palette, they all look reasonably strong. This one also works quite well in purple suprisingly, maybe because the theme has more clarity.
OK, so I'm going to start working on Tortilla Flat, because I have some really good ideas for that. I hope that the feedback in crit is helpful in terms of carrying on in this direction because I think they look really strong.
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