OUGD505: Exhibition book cover (Task 5- Brief 2)

Study Task for book cover: 

Background:

Designing a book cover for a theoretical text is very different from producing a design for a novel.

People read theoretical literature for different reasons than they would do a novel.

Identifying these reasons will help inform a successful book cover.

It is also crucial to embrace the content of the book recognising the history, context and purpose of the text.

Workshop Task:

Go to the library (or buy a book) and find one theoretical book to examine in some detail.

Study the book and its content (you can read it if you wish but scanning its content can give you much insight into its content and themes).

You may want to look for any secondary texts written about the book or its author (on the internet for example) in order to get a more thorough grasp of its meaning.

When you return after Easter you will discuss what you have learned about the text with your peers.

Note:Level 4 students will be designing covers for books about Graphic Design therefore you are encouraged to look at some more "dense" reading material better suited to level 5.

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I started off by looking through the list of theorists to identify which I would like to choose. By looking through a whole range of different philosophers and thinkers I found Aristotle's books intriguing and interesting as they are based on humans/animals and the soul/body.

I looked at all different books that he has written and one that stood out to me the most was 'De Partibus Animalium' which translates to Parts Of Animals. 

http://www.amazon.com/Aristotle-Animals-Movement-Progression-Classical/dp/0674993578

"On the Parts of Animals (Greek Περὶ ζῴων μορίων; Latin De Partibus Animalium) is a text by Aristotle. It was written around 350 BC. The whole work is roughly a study in animal anatomy and physiology; it aims to provide a scientific understanding of the parts (organs, tissues, fluids, etc.) of animals."

From reading sections of this book I found that the overall themes were based on the reasons why animals had certain features. Living things have similar components so instead of studying them individually it was suggested that they should be studied as a whole. Aristotle also suggested that animals and structures are products of nature and that their simple being has a purpose- their structure has a purpose. One of the points I also picked up when reading this book was that Aristotle suggests animal parts should be studied in terms of its cause- why it  has certain features.

"The same point applies to the natural things that seem to come to be by chance, as it also does in the case of things produced by craft" p209 This suggests that animals are a form of 'craft' because their form is for a reason, each part is considered as part of its making.

"If however, human beings and animals and their parts are natural then we should discuss flesh, bone, blood and all the uniform parts and equally all the non uniform parts for instance face, hand, foot and we should ask what gives each of them its character and what potentially is involved" p210

"since we must study the formal cause, we study the soul" p212 - this suggests that animals aren't just their structure but have a depth of soul too.

"nature is and is spoken of in two ways as matter and as substance"p212

"matter is its nature because of the soul"p212

From looking at the book and picking out quotes I started to create some thumbnail sketches of initial ideas.

1. (top left) The quote about matter and substance reminded me of the science particles and perhaps this could be made into a pattern or into the silhouette shapes of animals.

2. (second in top row) This thumbnail idea was simply to illustrate different parts of animals such as the heart, beak, blood cells, bone ect. As the book speaks quite heavily and in-depth about animal parts.

3. (third in) For this thumbnail I concentrated on the idea that animals and plants are put down to their basic structure which in turn means their cells. To combat this I thought about creating a book cover pattern which would incorporate simplistic and colourful representations of cell structures. 

4. (fourth along) This thumbnail was basically the idea of splitting an animal up into its basic structures such as its outer body, organs and skeletal form. 

5. (bottom left) Aristotle spoke about living things have similar components and most obviously most animals have lungs of some kind so I thought it would be interesting to illustrate this by including vital organs. 

6. (bottom row- second in) Aristotle spoke about species and the different types of animals so I thought that it could be an idea to show the different species in a simplistic illustrated format. 

7. (bottom row- third inwards) Within this thumbnail I drew a quick skeleton of a fish with the possibility of creating patterns based on fossils through embossing and perhaps other print processes to create patterns using animal structure. 

8. (bottom row- last) The last thumbnail was a quick idea from thinking of a graphic design perspective of Aristotle. He spoke about the structure of animals but perhaps there could be a way to portray this through design. The most obvious way of doing this was thinking about typography, each letterform has a structure to build it which is similar to Aristotle's view of the causes of animal structure and parts. To make this connection further I could experiment with hand rendering typography with animal structures such as bone and muscle. 

Within the interim critique I presented my book and the ideas/ thumbnails I have begun to form. They really liked the idea of using typography to illustrate animal anatomy. It was also suggested that I could look at some of the older illustration/books/typography of the time it was written and take inspiration from these for my own design. Especially when looking at typography I could take the basic structure from some of the older greek typography and merge this with an etched or scratchy textures within to form bones/muscle. We also ordered GF Smith stock samples as a group so I took this opportunity to choose older looking papers that were slightly textured but also a light/cool blue too. The brief states that only two colours plus stock can be used so therefore I will have to be careful with my colour choices- perhaps the colour could be used within the type such as the muscle tissue could be a shade of pink/red. 

From these I began looking at creating some digital mock ups:

I had started to look at diagrams of bone and cell tissue which created somewhat abstract patterns as a background piece however these would be quite conceptual and I'm not sure they would portray the book in a way which I would have wanted. 

I also looked into typography created from muscle and bone textures however they are incredibly complex and although they work as individual pieces as a whole it would be illegible and difficult to read. 

However I found some examples where this has worked incredibly well as one off pieces: 

http://talent.adweek.com/gallery/3172644/Muscle-Type-Free-Font

The fact that this is embossed further enhances the detail and texture created from such an intricate letterform. 

These illustrations of letter forms below were something I found incredibly interesting too whilst researching and it is something I would like to develop further perhaps in another project that would be more suitable:

http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-55989.html

http://www.notcot.com/archives/2008/01/anatomy-of-a-ty.php

Again this lettering is incredibly detailed and delicate which works wonderful on such a large scale however my book cover and poster will be on a smaller scale (a4 and b5) so therefore I think it would be wise to perhaps not develop detailed lettering as this would be difficult to read and perhaps use something much more simple and put the detail into an illustration. 

Examples of book covers:

Jessica Hische

http://papayablog.typepad.com/.a/6a01157258054a970b01676132162c970b-pi

Enid Marx

http://www.penguinfirsteditions.com/kp/K54.jpg

http://payload264.cargocollective.com/1/0/12415/7599300/druid-book-cover.jpg

These few examples of designs and artists who have created illustration book covers which is how I want to approach my own design brief. Aristotle's book is highly detailed and older too which would be fitting to research into colour choices and fonts/ type which give an older aura by stock choices and illustration.