Visual Styles

I found these posters for the National Park service during my research which has really inspired and informed the style of my book cover. They're all from the early 40s so the era matches when the book was set, but I feel that they have a much more modern feel then most of the graphic design of the time, ensuring any visual cues I take from them won't be too dated. 

In particular, I like the very constricted colour palette that minimises the amount of colours, while keeping enough of a varitey to add contrast. This is something that I hope I can effectively carry over into my final design. 

 

 

Film Noir Title Cards

 
Seeing as The Big Sleep has themes in common with Film Noir, as well as a film adaption that fits very well into the genre, I thought I'd look at some Film Noir title cards for inspiration with my typographic choices.

The natural place for me to start would be the 2 title cards I managed to find for the film version of the book. Both have typefaces very typical of the era (serif with shadowing) but seem to feel very dated and fixed to that period, leaving its use for a current book cover very limited. 

One thing I have noted from the title cards is the use of quotation marks around the title of the film. This is common of the period and something I might consider working into my design.

Research into Previous Book Covers

 This cover is the first edition version of the book cover. I personally don't like it very much, the shadowing of the title seems very awkward and greatly reduces the legibility of the word "THE." The choice of colour also seems quite jarring. I do like the rough texture though, as it reflects the gritty subject matter and storyline of the book.

 

 This cover was used for the book in the 1980s. I feel like this cover is much stronger visually, although not as good as it could be. The typeface for the title of the book seems to have a very 50s feel to it, which is a decade late for the novel. The image of the man however, has a very strong visual impact in the way it has been cut off, creating an air of mystery, matching the tone of the book.

 

 This is the current cover of the book used by Penguin. I think the use of silhouettes is very effective, creating a very unique atmosphere. The Saul Bass inspired typography also gives it an unusual and interesting feel. I'm not the biggest fan of the colours used but it make sure it stands out against the crowd. 

Choosing a Book

After some thought, I've decided to choose The Big Sleep as my book to design a cover for. I feel like it has very strong imagery and mood to it, which should help me gather much more concepts for my final design. Gritty crime novels are also something I'm not very familiar with so I think it will not only provide a challenge, but also allow me to approach the design with an open mind. 

The Penguin Complete version of the cover.

 

The next step for my project will be to finish reading the book and then generate some initial designs. 

 

AF101: Visual Communication

The Brief:

"Design a book cover following a supplied competition brief (The Penguin Design Award) Then adapt this design into an A2 Poster, advertising the re-launch of a book."

For the competition there is a choice of 2 books:

            The Big Sleep: The Big Sleep is an American mystery novel from 1939, written by  Raymond Chandler.  

‘The Big Sleep is a story of sex, drugs, blackmail and high society narrated by a cynical tough guy, Philip Marlowe. As such, it provides the template for much of the urban crime fiction which came after, as well as most modern Hollywood thrillers.'

            The Wind in the Willows: The Wind in the Willows is a classic children's book first released in 1908. It follows the lives of Toad, Ratty, Badger and Mole and the adventures they get up to.

I've started to read both books and look forward to working on a live brief.

Evaluation of AF102

Overall I'm reasonably pleased with the progress I've made on this unit and the final designs I came up with. At the start of this project I struggled with Illustrator as I'd never used it before, but in the end i think I developed my skills enough to successfully carry out my design. I'm glad I chose to do 2 different styles of poster as it gave me a better variety of work to do which kept me motivated. 

I found the presentation and crit process very helpful with developing my ideas because before each one I was convinced the designs were finished. It made me look at my designs in a new way and provided me with a very helpful forum for peoples opinions on my designs. I think that most of the major stylistic improvements in my design were down to the presentation and crit process. 

I think my first design follows the brief well and it communicates the message in an effective way. I would have liked to have more time to be able to accurately reproduce Triedlers unique style, but that would have taken far too long when using Illustrator and I  don't think my final design suffers because of it. 

My Soviet styled poster was the one that challenged me and developed my skills the most in this project. The fact that my design was changed from landscape to portrait towards the end was a useful in exercise in learning to adapt a design for a slightly different purpose.

The techniques and features of Illustrator I used (specifically when applying the texture) were things I'd never been able to do in the past and I'm glad the needs of my design forced me to learn them correctly. This poster also made me evaluate my layout skills and helped me learn how to arrange things on a page in a pleasing way. 

The project as a whole has also made me think more about my work routine and helped me to make sure that I keep working to a more regular schedule in future projects. The narrow use of software has developed a new skill set for me which I look forward to building on and utilising in an ongoing way. 

Crit Changes

Fairly minor changes were made to my Triedler inspired poster design following the Crit. The most notable was the addition of a rough border after someone noted that the poster I used for my colour scheme had a border in which the statue of liberty torch hangs over:

I thought this added much more depth to the design so I mirrored in by having the arms hang over it. Another change I made was to add a slight gradient shading to the sleeves of the suits because someone said they though it looked to plain with such a large block of single colour. The left had was also made slightly darker because people seemed to agree that it was too pale.

This poster had the most dramatic change from its previous version. Just before the Crit I noticed that most of the posters I came across in my research were portrait oriention, which I though was more appropriate for its use. In the Crit, most people agreed that this gave the poster a lot more impact and a striking visual appeal. The design was adapted accordingly, with the text being split onto 2 lines to make it fit:

 I think the portrait orientation was definitely the way to go as it allows much more space for the main slogan and it complies more closely to the visual style of the period. The texture of the poster was also increased to make the worn look a bit more obvious. I then decided to slightly change the reflection in the glasses to make it have a less comic-book style to it:

                                              Before:                                                      After:

 

Post Presentation Changes

On this design I mostly made very subtle changes. I've added a slight texture to the background using an art brush (chalk) and then expanding the result and dropping the opacity to blend it in nicely. The text for 'Invest' and 'Time' were also very slightly textured and curved a bit more using the simplify tool on a very subtle setting. The other improvement that was suggested was to add cufflinks to the the right hand with the LinkedIn logo on them. I decided not to do this in the end because I thought that it would clutter up the design and wouldn't add that much to the impact of the poster.

This poster had significant changes made to it after the presentation. I added a glow coming out of the laptop and a reflection on the man's glasses to make it clearer that it was a glowing screen in front of him. The screen was had a bit of perspective added to it so that it became more dynamic and matched the movement of the stripes in the background. The text was also adjusted appropriately. The main title text was also enlarged slightly and I put a line above and below it, this was to make it seem more filled out and to increase the impact of the poster. The stripes in the background were also changed so that they add more visual interest to the page with less relative detail to distract the viewer from the main message. 

I also added a texture to the whole design to give it a grittier and a more appropriate look for the era its from. This was done in a different was to the first texture example. I used a paper texture from a high resolution .jpg file, imported it into Illustrator and Live Traced it. The opacity was also adjusted along with the blend mode. I personally think that although it took a lot longer, the end result was worth the experimentation.

Pre Pitch Designs

Feedback:

• Add cufflinks
• Loosen lines on the font for 'Invest' and 'Time'
• Texture 

Feedback:

• Bevel laptop edges
• Change LinkedIn text
• Add glow on shirt and face
• Larger text

Tracing

Tracing my sketch on Illustrator to keep the dimensions accurate.

Adolph Treidler

In my previous post I looked at a poster by the designer Adolph Treidler. Treidler (born in 1886) contributed around 20 posters towards the war effort in both World Wars, as well as many designs for magazines and the Bermuda Tourism Board. A lot of his work makes use of relatively details figures or elements placed against a very stark background of block colour. This technique is very effective at drawing the viewers eye and creates a very striking atmosphere within the design. 

The image below provides a very good example of this technique. The figure of the seated woman placed against the plain blue background immediately becomes the main point of focus for the viewer. The yellow/orange of the woman's jacket and hat are also complementary colours the the background of blue, adding further to the contrast. 

This next image is also a good example of him employing the same technique. It also shows him making use of negative space for his lettering (as on the previous example) which I think adds a very unique and distinctive look to his designs. 

This poster for the recruitment of railway workers shows him using a few different techniques, including much more detail than a lot of his previous works. The colour palette is also greatly expanded to include more earthy greens and browns, making the image seem fuller and much busier. His use of script lettering to emphasise certain words is something that I think is very effective and very typical of the period, something I will be trying to make use of in my final design. 

A few more examples I've found that use script lettering for emphasis:

Ideas

The first idea I've had so far is to combine my previously researched area of War Bonds/Liberty Bonds with the Social Media of LinkedIn. My main thinking behind this is that LinkedIn is seen as the social network of choice for business and economic interaction, which I think ties in nicely with how the posters are raising awareness for the economic needs of a country at war. I think that the way LinkedIn centres around career and business exchanges can be seen as its defining aspect, making it a good starting point for my development. 

The above picture was another one I found that I really liked the style of. In particular I like the way fairly detailed painting has been combined with large areas of block colour to help emphasise certain parts of the poster. I also really like the very stylistic painting style on the far left because of the very simplified colour palette, which unifies the different fields of industry and general war effort.

Sadly I couldn't find anything about the particular artist who designed it other than the printing office it came from and that it was introduced in 1942, which coincides with the First (seriesE) War Bond Drive of the Second World War.

The image below is one I really liked because the way it also combines relatively detailed painting with block colour and typography. It also has a very similar colour scheme to the first image which I will most likely end up using in my final piece. This poster was designed by Adolph Treidler and displayed from 1945.