OUGD603 - Penguin Student Design Award (Wonder) - Initial Idea Sketches

In order to visual some of my initial ideas based on key and interesting points taken from the book, layout sketches were developed to get an idea of how these would look.

1. This idea was based on the main setting of the story, which takes place in a school. The idea was to make the cover look as if its a school textbook, on both the front and the back, featuring a box on the front which would include the title of the book and the name of the author in a handwritten font. In order to make this more interesting, the cover will feature small pen illustrations of objects and other themes which feature in the book, such as space, as if a student has doodled over the book. This will continue on the back cover also, in order to create some continuity and consistency. Potentially this could also be paired with images of notes stuck to the back cover, containing relevant information, representational of the notes the characters would send each other during school and slip into their lockers.

2. This idea continues to play on the school setting. The cover will feature a set of lockers, paired with notes on the back cover as if stuck to the lockers, again, representational of the notes some of the characters would slip inside one another's lockers. Type will be in a handwritten style, used on both the note illustrations as well as on the lockers themselves acting like pieces of graffiti.

3 & 6. These ideas both have a similar format. The cover will feature a classroom setting, with a black chalkboard in the background containing the title of the book written in white chalk. In the foreground will feature a desk, surrounded by objects which feature in the book, such as August's astronaut helmet, graduation cap, and school notebook. On the back could feature a continuation of the chalkboard, featuring chalk space doodles, and a couple of pinned up notes.

Another variation of this also focuses on the school trip which August attends. An image of a road would feature on the front then continue its way across the spine and to the back cover, which then features a woodland setting. This idea is also representational of the new journey August has to take in his life through school.

4. This idea explores the idea of a chalkboard, used in the classroom setting of the book. Similar to the first idea, the cover could feature handwritten type, along with chalk doodles of other objects and themes which appear in the book.

5. This idea focuses on a specific line within the book from Via (August's sister)'s perspective - "August is the sun. Me and mum and dad are the planets orbiting the sun. The rest of our family and friends are asteroids and comets floating around the planets orbiting the sun". The idea places August at the centre of the book, visualising him through his astronaut helmet (a significant object in the book), with three planets underneath the represent his family. On the back cover consistency could be kept through placing text in circles representative of these planets.