Design Brief - Book Cover

Following my previous brief on Publication / Magazine layouts. My next brief I picked to do was to design the front and back of a book cover from a selection of titles:

- Fairy Tales - An Anthology
- On The Road by Jack Kerouac
- The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe
- 1984 by George Orwell

I'd had already read On the Road and 1984 and out of the two stories I preferred 1984 for its darker themes on society and how its relevant in our own modern society.
The main idea was to stick to themes relating to the book as since I already had a knowledge base for the story I could think of ideas already relating to technology and being watched. However the main problem when thinking like this is since the book is already a classic with multiple releases a lot of these ideas had already been done. Along with this one of the main points stressed in the brief was to not be to obvious with out concepts and to try and keep the imagery we used original. So I needed to get my thinking hat on. First thing first was to do some basic research as such I went to Pinterest and researched book covers of all types.

Pinterest - Book Covers

After doing some initial research I went along my normal design process and sketch up some basic ideas starting with shape sketches to give me a starting idea of what I could play around with. I did this to get my mind into the groove as I started this project early in the morning and was still feeling rather sluggish. After doing the shape sketch I moved onto drawing mock ups for my book cover. Look at my research while using my knowledge of the 1984 book. A lot of covers tend to have cameras and the like related to them as they tie in nicely with the themes of the book But I wanted to go along a different line playing with distortion and glitch. I also wanted to try more 3D typed covers using layers and cut out cards. Along with this I still sketched up a few ideas with cameras and eyes through key holes just in case I could later develop them in a unique way which hadn't been done before.


Following on from my thought process from my ideas. I wanted to try developing my glitch idea. The main reason behind this is it relates very closely with my idea of a technology based cover which still relates to cameras so the glitch would be the almost perfect idea. However this is the first time I've ever tried to create a glitch effort so first I went a did some extra research back on Pinterest for ideas and thoughts.

Glitch Pinterest 

While searching for glitch effects I remembered about an artist 'Omocat' so works with dark characters but she also works with digital art, giving her pieces life and has a selection of glitch gifs which I couldn't help but fall in love with the wild colours and unique character designs. Further inspiring me along this idea.

After looking around the internet and talking with my tutor one way in which we found to make glitch photos was to open photos up in Text Editor on a mac. It doesn't matter which photo I used however we found out that from the edit the effect that is made is very random and up to chance. This is due to the fact to get the glitch I just edited anything after the first 1/4 of code. The first 1/4 of code is for the photo structure meaning if its destroyed the photo is also corrupted. The 2/4-4/4 of code when edited copied and pasted deleted moved etc etc they all create different effects. As such It was very hard to make an glitch which looked good in my mined but its very hits and miss as once I found a good glitch effect I could just copy and paste it throughout. Since this was a very random way of glitching I decided to research further for another method.

 Following the text editor method the next technique me and my tutor found was the displace effect in photoshop. Before even trying this I decided I would need some more photos to actually displace. So I photographed a collection of photos of colour paper on a light box. As such this turn into some very interesting photos when playing around with the shutter speed allowing for the coloured light to have a sense of movement to it. Once I imported these into Photoshop it really helped having this movement aspect as it helped bring the glitch effect a new sense of fullness which didn't work with the flatter images.

The displace effect worked by having layered my coloured photos on top of each other mixing the blend options and then displacing them with one another to create different effect. As well as this the extra displacing (displacing multiple times) helped create an even more glitch effect. The only problem I found with this was trying to work out when it was best to stop or add an extra displace. As of this its a very experimental technique but it had a lot more control then the text editor effect. Since I was working in photoshop too I could also change the hue and saturation of my images before displacing to get different colours. Once I had a final piece I really like I then offset the RBG channel layers to help break up the colours even more and in turn this added extra depth which really brought the glitch image to life. As seen above I feel this effect really works well for the effect I want. As such I think this will work really well as a background and going forward I feel this idea will be used in my final cover some where.

Now that I had this glitch effort I went back to my idea sketches and looked at how I could incorporate it with some of my other ideas as such My idea of having a cutout effect on the cover would work perfectly so after downloading two different type faces of the title I then quickly sketched two types in my sketchbook from the light box. I did it in my sketchbook as the grade of paper is rather think and not having done any paper grade testing yet this would be a good starting point.
For the cutout I used a simple craft knife to cute out the bold shape and did extra sketches for the more detailed line pieces. I did the more detailed design to see how it would look with the design coming through and as of this its clear the solid cut out is much more impactful then the cutout detailed design. This is because I feel it has a more bold finish to it and as such stand out a lot more.
For the actual background I put in my glitch effect I just made as well as a quick 3 colour lithograph I did over the weekend as a little experiment to see what colours and block shapes would look like compared to the wildness of the glitch effect. As of this and my theme I feel the glitch effect will be what I use for my final design but before that I need a more detailed design so much next step was to do more development. For this I went back to Pinterest and looking at artist such as Omocat for inspiration.

Following this research I decided I wanted to go with the cutout theme completely with a glitch background all that I needed to think more into was the design I would cut out. So I went with 2 very basic back designs that are cutout in a block shape and 3 triangle this is to give the design a strong chance to shine through and grab attention. Where as for the front I wanted a very sleek design that wasn't to large and over powering like the back. As such I stuck with more simplistic shapes such as my first thought was a camera lens but then realised I didn't want the whole circle to be cut out as It would put the title off centre. So I thought of a more stencil based design which graffiti artist would use where they leave connection points. This allowed me to decrease the size of the circle and have the type inside it. Which from a design stand point has really strong composition I feel.

Now that I have a final concept idea I went to trying out different thickness of card to see how easy they would be to form round the book of my choosing. I went with a A5 sized book and for the sleeve I went with a basic dust jacket where the sleeve covers the front back and spine but also had flaps to go into the front and back of the book to hold it in place. I used this design as it would be the best suited for the purpose of showing off my cover. Plus it allowed me to cut out the sections I wanted then sticking my design on the inside adding an extra layer which would hopefully give more depth to the peace and make it more stable.
As such I went out and bought 3 types of cards different grades from my sketchbook as of this the 2 larger sizes were to thick and keep wanting to curve out after being bent to my tome. Where as the thinner piece was very pliable and just strong enough to stay in place. With this in mind I went out and bought 2 colours of this card. The reason for buying two was once I have added in my design and cut parts of it out I wasn't sure if its structure would be lost due to this. So I could add an in-line with the second colour which should also stop the chance of the sleeve catching on the book and ripping off the design.
Now all that was left was to mould the card to my book and then apply the design and cut it out. Once I had done this I went into Photoshop to work on the back page. Since I had cut out the design first I could measure it and draw up a template in Photoshop to give me guidance for my type, blurb etc.

When I was importing my glitch effect however I wasn't to sure about it so I went back to my light photos and produced a compile more glitches until I came across this piece after a lot of experimentation with the displace and warp effects. Compared to the first I like how the colours seemed to overlap a lot more and the shapes and waves in the background almost seem to make new building shapes. As well as a hooded figure in the bottom right. However I still wanted to take it one step further. In my research I notice old TV glitches would be in pixel lines so I wanted to try and get this effect. I had had some random but successful luck in the Text Editor but finding the certain code would take time. Luckily for me I found a single line of code which worked almost instantly. As of this I went to work adding it to the piece and complete what is now my final background image below. The glitch lines really pull this piece together given it a sense of even greater death. These lines help break up the craziness of the piece while holding it together. The first thing it reminded me of was dripping paint on a canvas but in a digital style. 

Moving back to Photoshop and working on my back cover of the book.

With the basic shape drawn up adding in the details such as barcode, blurb, ISBN and quotes was all pretty straight forward since I had cut out the design in a unique triangle pattern I didn't have a lot of options to play with. As such I only had sizing and align to really play with since I had a type face already in mind. I added the blurb along the left side with the famous quote 'Big Brother is Watching' at the end to give the reader detail on the book while having the enlarger title in the top right again on an angle to give the space a bit of extra eye catching design. To finish it off I added another quote above the barcode in the bottom right as the open space felt a little jarring to leave it empty. Overall I really like the way this piece has come together and when attached to the sleeve I feel will stand out really strongly as of the slate colour against the crazy colouring of the glitch effect.

Once all stuck together my final piece is complete and all I can say is  really love the design. The strong pixel lines show of extremely strongly against the slate colour and work wonderfully. The use of space on the front cover really makes it stand out which the small creeping of the glitch effect shining through to draw the attention of the on looker. Overall I feel this piece was a complete success and the development to get here really help. Looking back and doing extra research really helped full this idea together and mixing different techniques together to get such a great glitch background. Which relates perfectly back to the theme of the book and always being watched in a technology based world which is forever moving forward.