OUGD504 STUDIO BRIEF THREE - FRONT COVER DEVELOPMENT

Following on from the feedback received, and it was suggested to remove the leaf pattern from the front as it looked too overcrowded, experimentation was undertook into different cover layouts and also to make the leaf pattern look more natural and less digital and forced.

These initial sketches show potential new front cover designs and also possibilities for foiling as well, as it was suggested more techniques should be experimented with to show a further depth of exploration.

This is a much simple cover, with only the band with the any detail on, although the title could be printed on the actual cover as well, just hidden beneath the band, so if it is taken off the title will still be known. This definitely looks a lot more sleek and minimal, however it looks a bit similar to Moleskin books, and may be a bit too simple as well.

This front cover design involves a large leaf printed on the main cover. This leaf could be transparent or black foiled, to create a more interesting appearance. It could also be spot UV varnished as well, however this is a more complicated method, but if this was being mass produced commercially, this could be a possibility as it is cheaper and easier to do when there are a lot of copies to do. This larger leaf also adds interest to the cover, without appearing too overwhelming and complicated, but still incorporates the leaf. With this design the title could also be included on the main cover, perhaps screen printed white on top of the varnish. If the leaf would be foiled, then including the title on the front cover would be difficult unless it was the same colour as the stock as once it is foiled it will be hard to do anything on top of it.

This is an example of what the cover could look like is only a spot varnish was applied to the cover, as it would create a slightly darker effect. This front cover could as well just be printed with a dark green leaf for ease as well, although a spot varnish would create a much more sophisticated appearance.

This is an example of front cover with no band, which is a very different kind of look than the previous designs because of this. This could be produced with printing the title on the ink jet printers in the digital print room, and the screen printing a spot varnish for the leaf, to create a different textured appearance. This is a very green cover, it may need the band to break up the green a bit, however this as a design works nicely and is relatively simple too.

This is an even simpler front cover design than previously, with just the logo and no band, however this could be a bit too simple for a front cover, especially when compared to the content of the book which isn't that minimal. To make this cover more interesting the title could be foiled in black to produce a bit of a shimmery effect, making it look more high class. It could also be ink jet printed and the have a spot varnish screen printed onto it as well. The leaf could also be embossed too which could be interesting. There are a lot of options for the title, all of which producing very different outcomes, however they all take time which there is not much of.

Test prints
Producing test prints helps to see how the designs will look on paper, and also to see how it will print on different stock as well. In these test prints the logo has been printed on G F Smith stock, Colourplan Forest for the first two photographs and Colourplan Lockwood Green embossed in Wire for the remaining. This is because these are the two stocks that are contenders for the front cover stock, as they are both slightly textured, and with the added detail of the embossing, which will go vertically up the page, this will reflect the trees being tall and thin and also the shape of the book too.

Leaf pattern development
After doing printed stock mock ups, and thinking that it looked a little plain with no pattern on the cover, despite a peer commenting that it looked professional without any pattern due to the embossed stock, experiments were undertook into different brush strokes for the leaf pattern, as this may create a more hand rendered, natural looking leaf that was less digitised.

Experimentations were done into different kinds of brushes in Illustrator, to create different effects. Some of these brushes used different opacities, which created quite an interesting, in depth appearance of the leaf.

Some of the more effective leaves were then arranged in the same pattern as was previously used, however with the brushes applied a less structured appearance has resulted. 

One of the brushes with an interesting stroke was copied into a much larger pattern, to see how this brush stroke works on a larger scale. This somehow looks a bit like the weed leaf that is often found on clothing nowadays. This is not something this book should associate with.

2/3 or near enough of the leaves were rotated randomly to create a less structured pattern, so it looks more carefree but still has a structure to work with.

As the cover will be printed on green stock, this is here shown within the design, and the lighter shades of the brush stroke show up very strongly, and the whole design looks a bit unprofessional.

Another pattern was created with a combination of three different brush stroke leaves, none of which had any different opacities to, so that a more even pattern was created. This works so much better and is much more understated, with a simpler pattern with colours that are closer in shade to the stock.

The leaves were then made a darker colour to see if this would look more sophisticated as opposed to being lighter and it definitely does. The darker colour makes the stock look much richer and darker as well, which is a positive.

The leaves were then rotated similar to a previous pattern, which makes the pattern look more carefree and less structured, however because of the different weights in stroke, some areas are darker than others, weight makes the pattern look a bit patchy.

The tracking was altered on the text in this shot to make the letters more evenly spaced, as the W and D were touching but other letters were more spaced apart. The tracking was then changed so that now all the letterforms are an even distance apart and it looks a lot more even The same has been done to the main title and "type in context".

This new title with a white band has been applied to the last version of the leaf pattern, to create a possible final book cover design. The subtle leaf pattern adds to the overall aesthetic of the cover, without being too chaotic, so the band and title stand out nicely.