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.
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