Tuesday 1 February 2011

Paul - Book Jackets Research

Penguin Books/Cover Design Research


Penguin books were founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. In the 1930's they used high-quality, inexpensive paperbacks that were sold by Woolworths and other such high street stores for only six pence. 
Penguin had a serious impact on public debate back then, through the books in politics, arts and science. 

This is an example of the Penguin publishing books, Animal Farm.
In a brief explanation, the book is about what happens when the animals on this farm drive out Mr Jones and attempt to run the farm themselves.

The whole outlook of the book is quite ornate in design, showing different taste and dramatic illustrations to better show off the power behind the story. It gives off quite a eery vibe, obviously showing the darkness within the story having illustrations of barbwire and a rich red as the prime colour.
It is a slightly surreal look for a book cover, although it looks busy with the fancy designs and what not, it is actually quite simple as it uses very basic illustrative skills, making it look like a vector piece or something off a propaganda poster.
The colours used are minimal as it only consists of black, white and the majority of it a rich red, with some lighter shades of it in some parts. Also, the text used for the title is quite bold, standing out from the already bold design of the book cover illustrations.

Another book cover design of the Penguin Classics Eugene Onegin.
This book is based upon old worldly Russia and about one russian guy who is apparently bored with life and inherited an estate in the country. He befriends his neighbour and asked to dine with them shortly after. There he meets his neighbour's wife's sister Tatiana who falls madly inlove with him, sending him a letter declaring her love to him. Instead of replying by letter, he meets her and rejects her love in person. Other such events happen and his neighbour invites him to a ball where as a joke he thought it would be alright to flirt and dance with his wife, later does he know the consequences of this little joke as the husband challenges him to a duel where he ends up killing him. Eugene then leaves the country and goes traveling to hopefully dilute some of his sorrow. Later on he ends up once again meeting Tatiana, all grown up and magnificent looking he declares his new found love to her and she, as he had done to her, rejected him in person.

This book cover design is detailed yet simple at the same time as all it is, is a sketch that is either oil or water coloured in to give it that vintage and old feel to it. Though there isn't much to the design except a very well dressed upper half of a gentlemen, it shows something more. The main part that draws you in is the flower on the jacket that is pinned over the heart and has blood dripping off from it. Indicating the heart ache, break and sorrow of his actions.
The colours are quite simple in this as it only consists of reds, black and whites, the text is also plain as to keep the illustration the main focus of it all. I like this book cover design as although it doesn't show much, it tells pretty much the whole story and the way that it is illustrated is different.


 This Penguin published book takes on quite a different look to the previous two as it mainly uses the typeography as the main focus to the design.

This book, 'The House of Mirth' is based around a woman Lily who is expected to marry a wealthy man and stay on top of the social status around them ages. Undoubtably she ends up sabotaging all chances of marrying wealthy men and slowly decreases in the social circle. It gets worse and worse for her to the point she gets hooked on sleeping pills and accidently over-doses.

The over-all design for this book cover is very simple as it just uses text, as it does with the other book cover next to it. That one however, uses the text to it's advantage, creating a typographic design around a little image in the centre.
 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Book Cover Research

The book, 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' is quite famous and well known.
It is based upon a scientist who wanted to seperate the good and the bad of himself, or rather create a stronger version of himself which ended badly and resulted into creating a monster, a killer, the evil part to himself.
(NEEDS FINISHING.)