OUGD603 Extended Practice Brief 05 Penguin Book Cover Getting Feedback and Final Touches

By way of an interim crit and to gauge further direction with this project I sat down and talked with a number of my peers about the design so far. The design I showed is below.

I needed most feedback when it came to the layout on the back cover, because I knew that this was not harmonious or helping communicate the content in any way. It was suggested that I allow more space either side of the eye on the back to help it communicate its winking state. It was also suggested that I use the central pin of the eye to balance the text on either side. I tried this , dividing the blurb and the reviews. I also slimmed down the winking eye, changing the line of eyeliner as if the eye had shut. This had a sense of a smile to it which really working with the tone of void that needed to be communicated.

In another nod to the penguin classics range I looked at introducing banners into the design.

This became far too much like the original designs and didm't communicate the innovation of the books content.

After much experimentation with reducing the dominance of the banners, it seemed that light framing touches were the most beneficial to the design and helped create further balance for the back cover by adding weight to the bottom of the page, greatly needed to balance the Lemon/Milk review text.

it was a brief, monetary thought with had a trial of a direct gaze of eye to reader. This was because I felt that the eye looking away, although intended to draw the reader to the blurb and also to communicate a sense of evaluative examination, seemed slightly submissive. Not the purpose of the book. 

However, because of the stylised nature of the eye, the animation of it with this direct gaze made it seem a little creepy, so I reverted to the original design.

In another attempt to soften the heavy block of text on the back cover the names of reviewing bodies was added in Gill sans (the font used for the lover case blurb) this not only instantly contextualises theses extracts as reviews but breaks up the block of text. I also had to go through all lemon milk text and re work the kerning. This was because it appeared unbalanced in places and distracted from the text its self. The decision was also made to swap the information hierarchy of tip on the spine. The Author being first and the title second. This comes back to the central theme of this design; Caitlyn Moran is the major defining selling point of this book.