GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project: The
Book Cover
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Main Assessed Project
Book Covers Background
The paperback book democratised reading in
the 20th Century and printing directly onto the
covers became a way of selling a book to the
mass market.
The cover design evolved as a crucial
element in the marketing process and artists
and designers have been striving to catch the
eye and convey the idea behind the book in a
single page ever since.
How has book cover design evolved and
what makes an effective, eye catching cover
design?
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Main Assessed Project
Book Covers Background
Until the 1930s, British book covers consisted of text
and a small splash of colour somewhere, maybe as an
underline or a border, or a plain background. Pictures
were thought to be common and too 'American' Even
the cheap end of the market, such as early novel
paperbacks, were really sober – title, publisher,
author, and a border if the editor considered the book
to be ‘flashy’.
After the first world war dust jackets appeared and
were regarded as disposable items to protect the
hardback underneath. Keeping the jacket on a book
would have been like storing clothes in a carrier bag
from the shop where they had been bought.
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Cassell's The Book of
the Horse by S.
Sidney 1890
Main Assessed Project
1920s
Then in the 1920s, the decade of mass
consumption and communication, and a
vibrant US economy, bright, new, packaged
and branded products emerged and books
became branded too.
With dyes no longer requisitioned for the war,
US publishers used colour with abandon
which, in turn, attracted a different more
promiscuous readership.
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Main Assessed Project
British Depression
Back in Britain, during the Depression, intellectual
snobbery almost got in the way of good business
sense.
The publishing economy was in a bad way, and
The Bodley Head company rejected an idea put
forward by one of its employees, Allen Lane. His
idea was to produce a series of cheap, massproduced and instantly recognisable paperback
titles.
It wasn’t the investment risk that bothered them,
but that they would loose their upper-crust (but
very small) audience because of the perceived
“cheapening effect”.
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Main Assessed Project
Penguin
However, when Allen Lane did eventually
launch his idea – Penguin Books in 1935, it
created an audience from the increasingly
literate mass market.
The general public could buy 10 titles for
sixpence, which was five times cheaper than
the average hardback sold through
Woolworths.
Penguin produced an intellectually respectable
product to which readers were loyal. The
design was absolutely crucial.
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Main Assessed Project
Case Study – Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell's classic novel was first
published in 1949 and emerged as a paperback
in 1954.
It's changing cover design reflects each
decades approach to selling the book to new
readers: from it's classic 50s Penguin cover to
the latest design from Jon Gray, they are signs
of our times.
Nineteen Eighty Four – British First Edition Cover
designed by Michael Kennard – published 8 June
1949
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Penguin Edition (UK), 1950s
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Signet Edition (US), 1954
Georges Braque, The
Portuguese 1911
Penguin Edition (UK), 1989
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Penguin Edition (UK), 1984
Tamara de Lempicka, Tamara in the
Green Bugatti 1925
Thomas Hart Benton, Palisades 1919-1924
Penguin Edition (UK), 1980s
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Signet Classics, 1990s
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Penguin Edition (UK), 2008, design by Shepard
Fairey
Penguin Edition (UK), 2009, design by Jon Gray
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Main Assessed Project
Case Study – A Clockwork Orange
The Book Cover as Art
David Pelham's iconic 'cog eye' design for
Anthony Burgess's 'A Clockwork Orange'
has permeated society since the first
paperback of 1972.
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Main Assessed Project
Cover Design – the Future
Bringing the story of the book up to the
21st century, the arrival of electronic
readers has sent traditional publishing into
a tailspin. The paperback and its cover
design has been replaced by the concept
of mass storage and electronic pages. As
this new technology gains new fans the
paper book comes under renewed
scrutiny. Whether society accommodates
both ways of disseminating knowledge in
the future depends on our continued
devotion to good writing, editing and
design.
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Main Assessed Project
The Brief: Book Cover Design
It is with this historical beginning in mind that you will be designing a
book cover for a paperback or hardback of your choice.
Part 1
Choose a book. It may be fictional or text, biographical,
autobiographical, serious or fun, but must be real. Think about the
words of the title – make sure that your choice has potential to suggest
strong, interesting and rich imagery.
Research your chosen title and carry out a deconstruction of its design.
Read the book, or at least a good proportion of it – it’s vital that you
know what the book is about. Read about the author and the conditions
of the book’s creation. Also, find examples of similar works, or other
inspirational designers, typographers or image-makers. Try to make
sure that you choose a book that you will enjoy researching.
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Main Assessed Project
The Brief: Book Cover Design
You will now be in a position to begin brainstorming and most
importantly, producing thumbnail visuals. It’s essential that you work
with your learning team at this early stage and take on board any
suggestions/ideas/ constructive criticism, even if you reject these later AND JOURNAL IT. Narrow down your designs and produce a full-size
final visual BEFORE going to the mac.
Make sure you design the back, front, spine and gate fold wrap around if
you are producing a hard back cover.
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Main Assessed Project
The Brief: Book Cover Design
Part 2
The second part of the brief gives you the freedom to be even more creative and develop an
area of your interest. Choose one of the following:
1.
Design a promotional product to work alongside your book cover. For example, some point of
sale, a freebie, a poster…. Your work should be printed out at 300dpi CMYK, full size or a to
scale print/model.
2.
Design a home page for a website or a piece of digital media to support your book cover. You
could include some navigation, but this does not have to work. This should be screen based
at 72dpi RGB.
3.
A story board and 3 stills (minimum) for an animation or video to promote your book design.
You can take this as far as you like depending on your technical skills, but this is not
compulsory. This should be screen based at 72dpi RGB.
Your supporting items from Part 2 should have a strong visual relationship to the original
design and should look like they belong together and promote the book. You should not
simply scale down the original and put it on a postcard - this is your chance to be really
creative and original.
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012
Main Assessed Project
Deadlines
13th/14th/15th March
Cover chosen and researched
Initial thumbnails of book cover
complete
20th/21st/22nd March
Final visual mock up of book cover
Initial ideas for supporting products
27th/28th/29th March
Preliminary mac work
17th/18th/19th April
Finalising designs
24th/25th/26th April
Peer Assessment - Completed practical
and draft report
1st/2nd/3rd May
Non-mandatory workshops
8th/9th/10th May
Project submission.
GDES1003: Creative Digital Imaging
Main Assessed Project – The Book Cover
Andy Screen 2012