OUGD406 STUDIO BRIEF 2 - FURTHER DEVELOPMENT AND FINAL CRITIQUES

Following on from the feedback I received on the different colour combination designs, and the research I have undertaken into back cover layouts, I started producing some full sleeve designs, starting without the side flaps and then including them.

I started off just having quite a simple back cover, which had all the information in it. This design was inspired by the back cover of the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, where the pattern from the cover comes into the sides of the back cover, with the publishing house's logo at the top in the centre, and then the blurb of the book and everything else is centrally aligned, with an even rag on each side of the text. I thought this would help make the information appear very organised and contained, so it looked manageable rather than all over the place. However I'm not sure I like the edges of the text, they look a little too rounded and uneven in width, perhaps left aligned or fully adjusted would be more appropriate.

I used fully adjusted alignment for the blurb on this layout, which I think works a lot better, and emphasises the clean lines down the sides of the cover. At the top of the cover instead of the publishing house's logo I put reviews of the book, a similar idea to The A-Z of Visual Ideas book I analysed previously. I think this creates a more sensitive opening to the back cover so you aren't just bombarded with this mass of text that's the blurb. I placed the bar code and publishing house in the bottom corners to balance out the cover and create firm ending points for the cover.

I didn't like the huge amount of text on the back cover of my initial designs, as I thought it looked a bit intimidating, and unappealing to read as well, so instead I transferred this information to the sleeves of my book, because then this not only breaks up the text into two manageable portions, but also allows the back cover to be much more aesthetically appealing father than informative. I took the idea of a circle with a quote from the book in from the back cover of the Pride and Prejudice cover i analysed in my research, as I thought this was a simple yet effective way to show the reader a little something about the book without overwhelming them, whilst also maintaining a desirable look. I didn't spread the purple band all the way over the flaps because I wanted them to stand out as being separate aspects of the cover. I used the same typefaces for the title along the spine as I did for the front cover, to maintain the aesthetic of the book. At the bottom of the spine are the authors names, because I thought it appropriate for them to be at the bottom as the title must come first. The logo for the publishing company, Allworth Press, is right at the bottom of the spine, small but significant, as I wanted this to be expressed on the spine but not to take away from the layout too much, and often the publishing house's logo is at the bottom of the spine of many books, acting as a full stop to the spine. I chose to put the blurb of the book and reviews on the flap on the front of the book because I thought this was a lot more important than a bit about the authors. Also because when you open the front cover to see what the book is about, this is the first thing you will turn to, and I thought this would be appropriate for the blurb to go, so you can't miss it really. This is the same layout as for the Bridget Jones book I analysed previously as well, whose layout I thought was very effective, and worked in order of important nicely. I placed the reviews of the book on the front flap as well as I thought it important that as well as knowing what the book is about, but they know what other people think of it as well, as this may persuade them to buy it.

Here I took the publishing house's logo from the spine and put it in the corner of the black flap, to allow more space for the authors names and the title of the book, which I think it does, but the authors names look out of place just finishing at the bottom of the spine, it feels like something needs to be there to finish them off neatly. I placed the publishing house's logo in the back flap corner alongside the cover designer and the name of the publishing house, because similarly to the authors descriptions this isn't a massively important part of the book that must be read.

here I simply added the publishing house's logo back to the spine of the book at the bottom, but still kept it on the flap as well, as I thought it adds nicely to the flap and adds something other than text to it. I chose to add the publishing house's logo back to the spine of the book because I thought finishing the spine off with just the authors names looked incomplete, and didn't finish it off nicely, and also when the book is placed on a shel the bottom part is the bit then can get a bit scuffed, and this could result in the authors names becoming illegible, and I thought it best this happen to the publishing house rather than the authors names, as it is less important.

This layout is exactly the same as the previous only the purple band only stretches as far as the edge of the spine, as i wanted to see what the circle around the quote would look like if it was just against the yellow patterned background. I think this circle definitely looks a lot better against the pattern than the purple, as some of the pattern comes through due to the lower opacity, and this creates an appealing texture contrasting with the precise sans serif typeface.

here I have removed the latter part of the title "Understanding Graphic Design" as I thought this adds unnecessary information to the spine of the book which can easily be found on the front cover itself. This also allows the authors names to breathe as well, so they have sufficient space around them. I kept the publishing house's logo at the bottom of the spine, but moved the authors names up to the purple band, so they sat nicely on the edge of it and became more important and related to the title than previously. I also included the name of the publishing house at the bottom of the logo, as I thought this would add to the logo, and also create a line at the bottom ending the spine more definitively. I removed the publishing hose's logo from the back flap, replacing it with the address of the publishing house, as this is often included on book flaps. I don't think the logo is necessary here because of the added information of the address, filling the space.

Here I added back the purple band as I wanted to see what my improved design looked like with it, and I think it works quite effectively and also looks like it flows better as well, from the front to the back cover.

Feedback
I posted these last two designs on the Graphic Design Facebook page as I was unsure whether the full purple or partial purple band works best, to gather other peoples opinions on my designs, and any improvements or adjustments that can be made.
Someone commented that they preferred the full purple as it works "more cohesive as a scheme", and suggested to carry it onto the flaps as well, this person also said that it looks too out of place jsut on the front cover. 6 other people also preferred the full colour one over the partially coloured design, nobody at all preferred the partially coloured design.
Someone also commented how they liked how the purple flows onto the back cover, and that they thought my colour scheme worked well.
Another person commented saying that they liked the balance of colours used, and that the title typeface was appropriate for the content of the book, but suggested to extend the purple onto the spine as well.
This was all really useful feedback and showed me which layout worked the best, and also gave me other things to try as well which might improve my design further.

Here I started with the initial purple band and extended it down the spine as suggested, and I think this does work, and helps to highlight the spine nicely, however looks a bit unusual with the purple stopping at the flaps, like it's growth has been stunted.

I then extended the purple to include the flaps, and this definitely works a lot more effectively as a layout as it flows a lot better from one aspect to another, nothing appears disjointed. 

I decided to try the full purple band without the fully purple spine, and I think this works so much better, and doesn't get in the way of the pattern either, but allows it to take hold of the cover. In the previous full band the text on the flaps was black and this was a little hard to read, so I changed it to white to make it easier to read, and this definitely works a lot better, and makes the purple look less dull as well, brightening it up, and also keeping in fitting with all of the other white text on the purple banner too.

Final Critiques
I presented the two designs shown below to a group of my peers and my tutor, as I was still unsure which layout worked best. It was said I should change the purple bands colour because that combined with the script title typeface and repeat pattern, and the overall layout of the dust jacket looks far to feminine for my target audience. It was suggested I could use a grey or blue banner to make it look more unisex. My tutor also commented that some of the weighting on my title typeface was too thin to screen print, so perhaps a less feminine, heavier weighted typeface would work better, and also screen print easier as well. People also commented that the full purple band works better than the partial purple band, because it flows a lot better. I will take on board this critical feedback and change the colour palette for my book cover to make it more unisex, yet for it still to be bold and powerful.

Presented designs:
These were the two design that I thought worked the most effectively, the only difference between them being that on one the purple goes onto the flaps and on the other it doesn't. I wasn't sure whether I preferred the purple to flow onto the flaps, making a more continuous design, or whether the flaps look better on full pattern, as this defines them as separate from the main cover, making them stand out a little more.

Improvements following feedback in final critiques:
I changed the title typeface to Lust italic instead of Lust Script, as here you still get the rounded letterforms but without the elaborate uppercase letterforms, which I think was what made it look more feminine. I think this typeface works a lot better as a title typeface, and also helps the cover look more unisex. I then just experimented with different colour combinations, changing the colour mode to RGB instead of CMYK as I will be able to screen print in any colour I want, and the printers in the digital print resource will be able to print more fluorescent colours than the printers in the rest of the university.

I changed the band to black as I still wanted to keep the bright pattern, but needed to change the purple which was making my design look too feminine. I thought that black would help make it look more masculine or unisex, and allowing all the text to stand out clearly against it. I think this creates a very powerful heading, and makes the title stand out so well, that you hardly notice the pattern initially. I chose fluorescent green as the pattern colour for this design as I thought that green could come out really luminescent , whilst still bringing brightness and gender neutrality to the cover. I also thought that green wasn't traditionally a feminine or masculine colour, so wouldn't appeal to specifically men or women, especially in a fluorescent shade.

I then tried pink as I thought fluorescent pink would look like LED lighting and appear very contrasting to the black banner. However this combination of pink and black does appear very feminine, and doesn't really achieve my purpose of being gender neutral.

I tried blue as I had previously used blue in my designs, and thought of reapplying it. I think however this blue being so pale looks to tacky against the black, having not enough colour to it, and being too bright.

I then tried orange, another colour I had experimented with previously, however I thought this orange looks a little too dull, and prefer some of the colours I have used before, as they light up the design more. 

I then tried yellow because I had used this colour in my previous designs and I thought this colour palette would also match than of the original book cover. I think though that perhaps the yellow would work better as the banner, as the black looks too dense against it.

I reversed the colours of the previous design to create this one, and I think the colour works a lot batter as the banner because it lights up the whole design rather than bringing it down. I don't however like the black as the pattern because even with the text turned to yellow you can't read it at all, which isn't practical. The body text on the yellow also can't be read easily as well, which it needs to be, so perhaps yellow isn't the right colour. 

I tried green again as I thought this would appear gender neutral yet is also bright and slightly darker than the yellow. I also changed the pattern to a shade of grey, so that the green appears strong and you can actually read the text. I changed the text to green to make it fit in with the green band too. My only problem with this is that the green is a little hard to read against the grey.

I changed all the text on the pattern except for the authors names to black to make it easier to read, and this is now a lot more legible. 

My peers commented that the text on the green banner can't be read that easily as it is white against quite a pale shade of green. I changed the text to the same shade of grey as the pattern to help it more readable, however the grey text against the grey just looks dull and brings the whole appearance of the cover down.

I went back to the white type on the banner, only I made the green a little bit darker to help make the text stand out more, so the contrast between the colours was greater. I think this works so much better, and the title is clearer as well. However it was brought up by my peers that they couldn't really read the authors names because they were of too much of a similar shade to the pattern.

I then added a green thin banner against the bottom of the cover that stretches the whole width of the cover, where I placed the authors names on top of in white. This makes their names stand out a whole lot better and so you can actually read them, I also made sure the bottom of the different elements across the bottom such as the publishing house address, bar code, publishing house name on the spine and price were all in line.

I made the green manner at the bottom thinner to emphasise the banner at the top, and so that it didn't take away too much space from the pattern, and then had to move the bottom elements down a bit so that they were an appropriate distance away from the bottom green banner. I also made the pattern lighter as I thought it was a bit too dark and dull against the fluorescent green banner. I also aligned the top of the title with the top of the rest of the text at the top of the book, so a clean line was formed. this also lead me to making the banner smaller so that the spacing wasn't off. I then had to reposition the circle on the back so that it was central to the banner and the back cover. I also made sure the bar code was central as well.