Before I start designing my book cover ideas on the computer, I decided that I would draw out some rough sketches so I have an idea of what I think will work and what I think won't work for the book 'The Elements of Typographic Style' by Robert Bringhurst. My first Idea was based on the idea that the book is known as 'The Typographers' Bible'. I decided I would turn the crucifix into a letter 't' (standing for type) and also change the name of the book. I think this idea could be successful, however it would work better if I could print the idea onto leather, and for this brief it has to be on paper. I also think it would look quite boring - as most Bible's front cover designs generally do.
I then decided to go back to basics and mess around with ideas of layout out just typography, as I knew that I didn't want to use an illustration as the original cover does and I think it looks really misplaced. I think this layout could work as it there is a lot of negative space and has a very minimal feel. I think it would look quite slick in Helvetica.
I looked into Modernist posters and designs and came up with the next layout. I don't think this would be a very successful layout for a book design as it's too minimal and the type would have to be quite small for the design to look successful, however this would make an unsuccessful book cover.
I then decided to do the same design as the second, however try it in uppercase and also put 'Bringhurst' on a line on its own. I think this would be successful for a modernist book design as it's left-alligned and simplistic, yet informative.
I then went back to the original layout that I designed in class for Study Task Three. I thought this looked really good, however it was missing something. Taking inspiration from the original cover, I decided I would try to see what it would look like if the illustration of type was done so it didn't look like it was stuck on as an after-thought. I think this could be successful if basic colours were used.
I decided to stick with lowercase letterforms as I think they will look more modernist on my book cover design. I experimented with different illustration letterforms as I wasn't sure of the meaning of the 'E' on the original cover and thought it could work with any letter.
I then designed a simple type book cover. I think this could work, especially when I experiment with overlays when screen printing, however I could only overlay the title as the type for the authors name I think would be too small and would look really odd.
I then thought about creating the same as above, however having a sort of backwards shadow of the word underneath each line as illustrated above. I think this could be effective in dark colours. I think this would also be a modernist design as it's left-alligned and there is a lot of negative space to compliment the type.
I thought about the idea of using overlaying colours to create a third colour as I have seen this done before and I think it could be really successful for my book design. I decided I would create a version of the illustration type however using overlay/multiply.
I thought I would experiment with this a bit more, however also consider how it would look with a back cover as well as I originally only really considered the front cover design. The word 'type' would be overlayed and would be a mixture of Arial and Helvetica to show the elements of type.
As I hadn't really considered back cover designs as well as front cover designs I decided that I would experiment a little with the layouts. I think it's quite tricky, actually, as it's hard to design everything as a whole but still left-allign the type.
I think overall these back cover designs could be successful, however it's quite hard to tell without doing it digitally, so for this reason I am going to start designing the front covers on Adobe Illustrator now and see what people think of my designs in the next group crit.
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