Classic Covers

Classic Cover 1

Classic Cover 2 

After researching into the classic covers of To Kill a Mockingbird I discovered that majority of which carry out a single similarity, they are all obvious in meaning, giving the audience a visual idea of the context; which is normally criteria associated with children’s books. The second example here actually shows a scene from the film, which then turns the book into a literary version of the film, when in fact it was vice versa. Although this may be an interesting concept to get viewers of the film to become the audience for the original book.

The first book cover follows the successful Marber grid, which can be found on many original penguin classic books. This was successful as a cover which became part of the classic series, this could be interesting to explore in a new way; possibly breaking down and rearranging the grid. The second example doesn’t really reveal much in terms of being designed to a grid, it in fits with keeping the title as the main focal point of the piece. Yet the cover has multiple type faces and no colour scheme, so I don’t believe it is successful. This is something I will be bearing in mind when developing my cover design as I don’t want to overpower the cover with colour, typefaces and imagery; this makes the book look not classic and takes away from the books massive part in literature. Therefore the first design is more successful, being simplistic, yet it is too obvious.

SB1 Existing Covers

Current Covers -

Sold in Waterstones Leeds February 2017:

Design 1

Design 1

Design 1 

This is the most contemporary design out of the three that I could currently be seen being sold as of present. I say it is contemporary but not in terms of the illustration used. The illustration has detail which contrasts the modern block colour style in which it has been rendered, the way the print has also been produced is modern, the cover doesn’t completely come to the end of the book cover revealing some of the art work underneath. When looking at the fictional adult books within store the book stands out because of its vibrant red spine, the colour of danger and change, which that book contains an element of both; change being one of the key themes in terms of class, racism and prejudice divides. The back is simple and minimal, contains only the basic information that is required, this is to not distract from the information as the rest of the book follows a bright busy theme. 

Design 2e

Design 2

Design 2

The second cover found was harder to find on the bookshelf, this is due to the plain spine of the book, although it in keeps with the rest of the design. The black cover to the book takes away from the complexity of its contents, reaffirmed with the child like illustration of the bird; it almost gives the impression that the book is aimed towards a younger audience. The only colour on the design is presented in the orange bird, although this is visually correct to contrast against its black background it doesn’t have much relevance to the story nor the contents of the book from first impressions. The cover is also obvious, the main focus being the mockingbird illustration, it is successful in telling the audience something about the story line; although personally I believe a successful adults book cover should be un-obvious and almost make no sense without reading the book, this is something which I will be taking into consideration with the design of my cover. 

The third current design derives from the 50^th anniversary with a rejuvenated typeface, similar to the past design yellow has been used to contrast against the black shadowing. The illustration remains identical as it was successful and became recognisable for the cover as of the half a century iconic cover to the American modern classic. Although it is successful on the cover, it just complicated the spine; which against the already condensed typeface gives a confusing atheistic, therefore making the design, which is meant to make the book stand out on the shelf, pointless. The layout choices of the front cover is also confusing as nothing is really a focal point as everything is a similar size and weight, other than the tyre which almost resembles type but the entire page doesn’t have enough white space to single out any element.