OUGD603 - Penguin Student Design Award (Norwegian Wood) - Design Developments (2)

Based on feedback it was decided to start experimenting with the composition of text and imagery on the back cover of the book. For the main passage of text explaining what the book is about (the blurb), it was decided to utilise the same typeface as used for the title and author of the book on the front cover and spine in order to create an element of consistency throughout the spread. However, unlike its use on the front and spine, this text was kept black since it was found that when changed to white, this made the text more illegible when this colour was used for a larger passage of text, however it was thought the black still continued to work well in creating colour consistency throughout the design. In order to separate this passage from the quotes, a different typeface was used for these. The idea of playing around with black and white suggested in feedback was utilised in this instance, singling out the quotes from who said them, almost creating a hierarchy of information through the use of colour as well as the different typeface compared to the blurb.

In starting to experiment with incorporating imagery amongst this text, one idea was to place the jar illustration, without the birds, at the bottom of the back cover in order to show some continuation. Placement of this was also experimented with. It was thought, however, that this continuation was not as playful as it could be, therefore another idea was to place some of the scenery from the jar itself onto the back cover, for instance, the trees.

Based on this idea of taking imagery from inside the jar to place on the back cover, a development from this was to create a strip which could then lay across the bottom of the back cover above the white strip where the barcode sits. In developing this, then, it was decided to take the red rising sun as the main consistent element from the front cover illustration, placing this behind representation of clouds which utilised the same halftone element as used on the jar in order to make this less block colour and more consistent with the details on the front. Trees were then also added amongst these variations in order to represent the forest settings.

Initially, the design which featured an outline around the clouds was used since it was thought this may better match the bold use of line amongst the other illustrations, however, when placed on the design, it was thought this looked slightly odd.

Therefore, this outline was removed and it was considered this worked more effectively in representing light clouds, whereas the outline made them look slightly harsh. This was also thought to work better and more consistently with the halftone elements which feature on the jar illustration since these also do not have an outline.

Continuing to focus on feedback, one suggestion based on the conflicting views on the size of the type used on the front cover was to create a happy medium between these. Therefore, the author's name was kept at the same smaller size as used on the variations above, however, the title was enlarged slightly to make this stand out a bit more but not enlarged so much that this overpowers the illustration, which was my concern with initial design developments that featured larger text on the front cover.