Design Practice

I produced a few initial sketches that I quite enjoyed. I liked the idea of using the quote 'stay gold' within the book cover..







Even thought I quite liked this design, I thought about it and realised that I couldn't really have this across the cover as people would think that the book was called 'Stay Gold'. From this idea, I drew out some typography for the book in a similar design style..





My final drawing was as follows:

There were a few things about this that needed perfecting, so I traced over the typography in illustrator, tweaking bits and bobs along the way..




It was a lot easier to produce the design on the computer as it was a lot more precise than by hand..



I decided to work with vintage colours, like golds and browns to create the aesthetic..






I quite liked the 3D effect of the title, so I used this with the Author's name as well, for continuity..




I decided to use a pale yellow in the background, as this helped to create a vintage feel..


I thought that I'd try out layout ideas with the blurb and the rest of the content for the cover..



I didn't really like this layout for the blurb, as it was starting to look too childish. I wanted the book to have a 'grown up' feel to it so that it wasn't patronising..






Moving the layout around the page helped to make it appeal to older ages as well as teenagers..


I then thought that the book cover wasn't really reflecting much that happens within the story and was a bit of a plain background, so I added some blood to the design..


However, the blood was a bit too bold and textured, it also looked quite pixelated! So I decided to create it on illustrator..


But then the blood looked too flat..


I added gradients to the blood so that it had a bit of shine, as though it was wet on the page..


I also created some mock-ups of how the book will look when it's printed to get more of a feel for how my design was looking, and to see if it would be successful.

These mock-ups have also helped to give content for design boards.

The first mock-up was to see how my design was now looking in context. I realised that some of the ornament in the title and author name wasn't needed, so I made it cleaner and more simple..


Final Design Mock-ups:





I am really quite pleased with the final result - I think that the book cover looks professional when wrapped around a book, and actually quite surprised me when I saw it in context! I think that it will reach out to teenagers and should hopefully encourage both sexes to read the book, rather than aiming completely towards the masculine side.