OUGD603 - Penguin Student Design Award - Book Cover Analysis (2)

The current cover for the book 'Wonder' was designed by Tad Carpenter, guided by the instructions of author R J Palacio. The design features a minimalistic illustration of a person with a single eye which appears to be slightly disproportioned, paired with a handwritten font that curves across the top of the eye, representational of an eyebrow. In this design, the artist describes the illustration as relating directly to the theme of facial deformity found within the book, whilst the single eye relates to the book's narration from multiple perspectives. Alongside this minimalistic imagery, a simple colour scheme has also been used, one which is considered to be easy on the eye and allows the illustration to stand out from the background.

Another variation takes on a similar style however in addition to the disproportioned head with a single eye, this is surrounded by other, more proportioned faces, with two eyes. This is representative of the way in which the main character August feels, in that he feels as though he isn't an ordinary kid, because "ordinary kids don't make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. Ordinary kids aren't stared at wherever they go", taking direct reference to a passage of text within the book and featured on the back cover, creating some consistency between image and text.

Since the release of the film 'Wonder' based on the children's book, an alternative cover design was produced in order to show the links between this and the film. This cover features a similar minimalistic colour scheme to the original, incorporating blues and whites, which can be seen as representational of August's dream of becoming an astronaut. The design incorporates image into text in a playful way, using the space helmet as the 'O' in the title.

Penguin's brief states that the cover design should ensure that the book remains important and a must-read for every child, as well as appealing to adults who may wants to buy it for themselves or their child. In this sense, the cover design should be appealing to a wide generation of readers and it could be considered the current designs do not effectively communicate this book towards this audience. Therefore my entry design should be unique, engaging and not focus on the obvious elements of the story.