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.
Monday, May 17, 2010
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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