A2 Poster design

After creating the book cover we have to create a poster in relation to the book we've designed and promote the book as if its a book launch poster. The first thing i started was using my book cover design and placing it on a book which i worked on in Photoshop so it would give an idea of what it would look like in a shop and also promoting the book itself so people know its a book rather than a film poster or something, so wanted to make it clear it was a book launch poster promoting this book.

What i did to get my design on the book is first to find a book that i could used to place my design. I then did a couple adjustments with the front cover, by using a paintbrush which matched the colour of my cover and painted over any imagery or text that was on the book before. Afterwards I then got my design and went into 'Edit' 'Transform' then 'Distort' and angled my design according to the angle of the book to it would fit in perfectly, as if it was the actual book itself.

After creating the book i then went onto creating the poster and started by using the wrinkle tool on parts of the design so it would relate to my book cover like something that's been torn, giving that rebellious feel to the poster, and I also used textures for parts of the poster to give a slightly rougher look to it and then used the pattern from my design with a low opacity so it wouldn't be overwhelming or too heavy as i want the book to be the main focus.

As i created the main design for the poster i then placed the book in the centre of the poster to make it the main focus and eye catcher of the poster, i then rotated it up right to make it look more appealing and easier to see the book. Afterwards I then placed the text i thought would be needed in the poster which promotes the book.

This is the final appearance of my design for the poster which helps to promote the book and the book off the design i created. I've used both Rockwell for the main body text and Slab Thing for the title and author of the book and had them larger in font size as they are two of the key parts of the poster which are more important and need more attention.

Branding Guidelines

Branding Guidelines is a bunch of information placed in a selection of documents detailing about a companies design characteristics and how this is achieved and done. So this might include things like Typography, colour, layout, and logo and would be used to make a company look more structured and professional but the use of branding guidelines is to justify what, where, why specific elements go and why as well as what elements they do use and why.

Since we have to create a branding guideline for our book cover design its a good idea, to look at the topics there are and what content is in it for those specific topics and how its presented and explained.


One of the topics to include in a Branding Guideline would be Colour.

Colour

With colour I would need to include either a specific colour palette or range of colours that are used within the content from a companies logo, designs etc. So in this case it would be the colour palette i decide to go for for the book cover design.

Looking at this example they use the colour palettes and then go onto stating the values in RGB and CYMK and for web. This would be done to give an overview of the shades and what they look like on different formats and potentially on either a Mac or Windows. The colours would not being referring to the colours from a background or imagery but typography as well.

Explaining colours and then showing imagery with the colours helps to give more of an insight to what the colours look like on specific elements of their products or work and then justifying the colours and what makes them work well.











Fonts

Depending on the company and what they do will vary what fonts and types of text it would need to include in the guidelines. So typography to include would be the typeface from the company, the heading, sub headings,  body text, quote text, web text, small print text etc and their main font and the alphabet. Then talking about size of text, spacing and text position etc.

In this example from the E4 channel Branding Guidelines with  typography it goes onto talking about main branded type they use for identity then displaying it in a light weight, medium and bold

Then also talking about the size restrictions and what it should never be over and how the headlines should be used and talking about which weight should be used for what sizes.


Basically talking about what should be used for what occasion etc as well as what system they currently use for size and typeface, weight, spacing etc should be included. Also on the cover of the type should be discussed and why and what positioning and reason it is displayed like that should be included.


Logos 

Logo's are what most companies use in order to brand their company and represent them as a whole. This is used for both web and print. So what might needed to be discussed for logo's in a branding guidelines.

Well the example below shows logo and talks about what it consists of and alternative logo designs the brands also uses.

It goes onto talking about the clear space around and it and what amount of space it should have to give it room to breathe. The guide also goes onto talking out the minimum size the logo's should be.

They also talked about the colour variations and what backgrounds the logo can go with.

Then something i noticed was that they also stated what not to to with the logo which can be from sizing the logo as it should not be to making the logo a completely different colour. This helps to emphaise things you cannot do and makes people realize its their brand and they have it the way hey want and not how you want. It then goes onto the placement of the logo and the specific spacing.

Layout

With layouts a lot of brands use layouts to create a structured composition which can mean using grids in order to make the overall brand look neat, tidy and well placed rather than messy and randomly placed which could make the overall brand look unprofessional. However specific layouts are usually talked about in separate parts like typography or logo and then the positioning.

Imagery 

Talking about imagery is one of the most important aspects with brands and in the guidelines it potentially might focus on the imagery the brand or company has used and why it fits the situation and placing in its context and why it was chosen and who it works or what it represents. Imagery can be both illustrations and Photography.

Resources:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/07/21/designing-style-guidelines-for-brands-and-websites/

Update The Outsiders book cover design development

I haven't updated this blog when it has come to my progress in the design for a bit as I've been with other work with my other teacher Sue and her magazine work and trying to get it close to finished. Along with that I've been trying to finish up the poster, guidelines, essay and design for my book cover project. So i've mainly been focusing on the practical work itself and i'm here now to update my blog about my design and show the development of my design.



Below is the design of the cover which was a mock up that i showed in my presentation, and is originally the design i was going to go for at the time, but since a few people said they preferred my other design with the broken bottle and blood i decided to rethink what design i was going to go for.

The week presenting my pitch to the class, at the weekend i decided to experiment and improve my design a lot more with the patterns as i was still strong about this idea slightly more than the other one, even though a few people liked the other design a bit more. Below is an example of the improvement at the time. From the previous mock up i showed in my presentation, i added a few things as well as got rid or changed a few things.

Firstly i re did the paper and used a better tool to get a more torn look to it which was the wrinkle tool and it helps to give this type of effect to objects. I decided to get rid of the lines within the paper because i didn't want the design to look too complicated and too overpowering against the type of the cover and the blurb on the back cover.

Something i also improved on was the blurb in the back, i decided to separate the quote and main blurb apart so it didn't look to closed in and hard to read. I also used a drop cap as it gives interest to the blurb making it less intimidating to read and looking more inviting. I also used read within some of the blurb to highlight key parts of the story to also give more of an readable and legible blurb for the back cover.

I also added some extra imagery on the cover with blood on the paper to add to that rebellious, gang crime feeling from the story so if it were in a store it would be even more obvious what type of book it would be. I did this with the front and back cover and not much so its not to overwhelming and overused.

The Tuesday the following week i showed a teacher of mine the improvements i made and telling him i really wanted to go for this idea rather than the broken bottle idea as i felt more confident and stronger about this idea and told him overall it looks more interesting and visually pleasing in comparison to the other one.

After agreeing with me and saying he liked the idea with the patterns a lot as well and i should just go for this idea and do what i feel is best it made me feel more confident that the idea was better and that in the end it would look a lot better than the other idea people wanted me to go for. My teacher did suggest instead of having paper look like its attached to the cover to have it look like the cover has been torn into so you can see the paper from the inside of the book, giving a cool little quirk and interesting design idea and a somewhat of an illusion with the design.

This concept would make more of a better design and did make re think slightly the design it would look like, still having the main idea there but changing it slightly, but making it overall look more impressive and a better idea and a better design.

Currently now this is what my final book cover design looks like and I am very proud of the way it looks and how far its come from the mock up. As you can see many aspects of my design have changed from the mock up i originally made. I took my teachers words on board about making the cover itself look like its been torn and creating this illusion with little additions to help emphasise the cover being torn into. This idea helps to show the rebellious side to the story giving more of a sense of rebellion and crime, without it being o gory or too complex and graphic for a teenager.So I'm very happy with the final outcome of the design.

One of the aspects that helps to emphasise the torn cover is having it torn right from the edge of the cover and have it torn in a a messy way along with the torn part scrolled up giving a realistic and more convincing torn cover.

Again here is another torn part and i decided to use this concept a lot more in a convincing way by using it for a lot of the info parts of the book cover and did it in a non structured way so it does look fake which is why the text is at an angle shown above and why the torn part is at an angle. When tearing paper or card its not ever perfect and straight which is why in the cover i angled the torn parts slightly making it look like it is actual been torn from the cover.

Here is the back of the cover with the blurb, now i did changed a few things i.e. tracking some of the text to look more legible and readable, again i angled the torn pieces slightly to look more realistic. I also used the idea of the blood and added extra drops of blood on other parts of the paper.

Also something i'd like to point out is i used an inner glow on the paper part to look more realistic as if the cover of the book has been torn into and that you can see inside the book with the paper. Something else i did was actually using a bit map image texture of paper and clipped masked it against the torn shaping of the paper to look more like paper inside the cover and to look more visually pleasing.

Overall this is what my design looks like now, i still was able to use the paper idea but in a different way and overall it looks like a better design now, and the patterned images are still used to great effect as the torn cover isn't too overwhelming that you can't notice the patterns, and the overall impression you get from this would be a rebellious type of teenage gang themed book which is attractive with colours and design that teenager and adults would both be keen on buying it and want to read the book after noticing it in a store in comparison to other books. 

My book cover design decision

After the presentation i got mixed signals about which design to go for and originally wanted to go for the pattern design book cover as it portrays the themes and aspects of the story through the use of pattern imagery and does it in a way that would appeal to both teenagers and adults as well.

The main reasoning for going for this idea was because i felt like i put more effort into this mock up at the time than the other one and the design of it all looked more appealing and interesting than the other one with the bottle as much as i liked that idea, but i felt most strongest about this design and a lot of people including my teachers agreed and said they liked this idea a a lot more and it shows that this idea can be improved and enhanced to look even more impressive and eye catching as a design.

At the moment i'm currently polishing off my book cover and the poster and starting to work on the branding guidelines and will go more into depth about the design of the book cover and how much its changed and the posters appearance in another post.

But just a quick note my overall design of the book cover has changed a lot and I've done a lot to it and its a lot different from this mock up shown above.

Book Cover Presentation feedback

The other day our class had to present our development and response to the brief and the show some of the research we did as well as our design and idea development and how far we came and what final ideas, colours, type design style etc we wanted to go for and why.

When i had presented i thought it went pretty well, i stood up, made body language in relation to presenting and made eye contact and thought i explained my ideas, and research i had done clearly confidently and justified why wanted to use certain elements in my ideas.

When i got feedback there was mixed opinions about my two main design ideas. In my proposal i wanted to go for the pattern design idea because i really liked the appearance and felt more confident with it as it felt more finished in comparison to the bottle blood design. A lot of people said they liked the pattern design a lot however thought that the bottle design with the blood was more stronger and was overall a better design.

Me personally i still really like the pattern one a lot because to me it looks more attractive and the comments on this design was mainly to get rid of the tron paper in the back as the blurb box and just have a dark box that  contains the info if i were to go for this design, otherwise they still all really like this design but just preferred the other one.

I dunno but i think the torn paper in the back cover works well, now i don't know but the reason some of them might not have liked it is because of the lines and the hole on the paper, but because it was a mock up i felt like its only a draft of what it was going to look like so i felt like i didn't need to have a finished design. So if i decided to go for this design i potentially might just get rid of the hole in the paper and lines and have it blank torn paper and it might work better.

In relation to this design a lot of people liked it a lot and did prefer it my other design i originally wanted to go for. However, despite the fact that they liked it more my teacher thought that instead of using two seperate images on front and back that i should use the knocked over bottle and have it overlapping both sides so its more of one design on both cover sides. Thinking about it did make me think that might be a good idea i did want to come back to this design and go for it as my final idea.

Overall most people said i spoke clear, well and presentation was in a good order and i presented very well but wanted me to go for the bottle design rather than the pattern one, so i'll experiment more with both of the designs and ask my teacher after doing so which one they prefer and see overall which is the stronger design by asking him and a few other classmates again what they think of the updated designs.

Mock ups / Graphics

After Looking  into a selection of fonts to use for my book cover i thought it would be handy to make some mock ups from my sketches to decide what design i want to go for as at this point i was divided on what design i wanted to go for, so i decided to create mock ups for a few of my personal favorite ideas.

1.2.

3.4.

This graphics above are some of the early mock ups i created for my cover of The Outsiders. The 1st mock up was one of my early ideas i had sketched out which is a bottle knocked down with the cola leaking out or even blood. I wanted to play with contrast which is why i chose these colours and i think the red blood helps to convey the violence and rebellion themes that are contained within the story of the book.

The 2nd example is another i sketched out originally where Ponyboy is holding a half broken bottle to use it as a weapon and the other graphic of the broken bottle is experimenting with the angle from my previous idea and adding a cream fill as well as it being broken instead to see what looks better.

The 3rd example is another idea i decided to create as a mock up which was originally an idea i had sketched of Ponyboy as him as a silhouette, smoking as he is watching the sunset, but because i wasn't strong on this idea as much as i liked it i had other ideas to pursue more so i just left it at the moment as the silhouette.

My 4th mock up is similar to the 1st one as it was designed similarly but the difference with the angle and it being a broken bottle with the blood leaking out rather than the bottle being just knocked over and leaking blood. At the time if i was going to with the bottle and blood idea i was unsure if i wanted the bottle to be broken or just be knocked over which is why i created multiple mock ups of this idea so i could come to content to which one i wanted to go for if i decided to go for this idea as my book cover design.

After creating a few graphics for my design ideas i then went onto create proper mock up book cover designs to see what some of my ideas would look like. This idea i was very strong about with multiple doodled patterned images from the story i.e. knives, cola bottles, popcorn, bottle cap, gun, cigarette etc and because i wanted to go for a colour scheme with black, reds, and blues/greens i wanted to mix the colours with the patterns to look visually pleasing.

The use of torn out paper to add a very scruffy look to the story and to emphasise rebellion and the fact that some of the characters still go to school and are in a very gritty, lower class place and getting involved in gangs and crime and violence. The doodled drawing patterns also adds to the torn out paper and adds a informal look to it. The use of the doodled images would help to give someone an idea of what the story i about if they saw this design on the shelf, so it helps to relate to the themes and story of the book.

The typography for the main title and author is from one of the type faces i found online that i thought that works really well with the the type of book this is, its called 'Slab Thing' and is a slab serif and it works really nicely as its bold and strong, but not too formal and has a sense of rebellion and a scruffy feel to it which is what i wanted to go for.

On the back cover is a torn out piece of paper which would be where the blurb goes and fits in with the theme of the book cover. Overall i really like this design and potentially might go for it as my main design for the cover I'll create, however this is a mock up and not a final design so there might be more changes from this and the final design if i choose to go for this design.

This was another book design i created as a mock up and is the idea of the bottle with blood. In this mock up I've used the same type face as the previous one as it was the font i wanted to go for in my final design as its bold and effective and works well with the theme of the book.

At the time i didn't know how i wanted to display the knocked over cola bottle with the blood, so i tired a few different places and this is one place where its all on the main cover and isn't in the way of anything else. As for the back cover i knew i wanted the pool of blood to be the blurb box but didn't know what else to do to the back cover so i thought it would be a good idea to make the angle different on the back cover and have the broken bottle on each end of the blood leaking out as it then let me use the broken bottle idea and the knocked over bottle idea. However i still am experimenting withe the all of these designs as they are only mock ups and not final designs and in the end I've got to choose a final design to go with and that i feel is the strongest out of all of the designs and ideas I've came up with.

Typography Selection

I've recently been doing a lot of research into type that i potentially may use for the main title for the book and below is a selection of the fonts i found that i thought looked appealing and could work with being the name of the book on the book cover.

Looking at them you can tell that some are way different than others like some are serif slab text and others might be san serif text. When i looked into vintage 60's graphics that used type in the imagery a lot of them used slab serif and others used san serif. This is because san serif was a big thing around the 1950's and helped to make artwork look more modern and other types of media. However slab serif is also a popular typeface that was commonly used in the 60's and kind of resembles America at the time and makes work look strong and bold with it still looking somewhat informal. Some of the type i found was a bit scruffy and that is what i wanted to find to make the type relate to the story and gangs, being scruffy, messy and informal to relate to most of the themes and overall impression of the book and what the plot is. I haven't officially decided which one i'm going to choose for my final font type for the title of the book but eventually i'll come to a decision when i experiment more with my ideas, colours etc and see which works best and of course get advise and opinions from my classmates and teachers.

Colour Choices

After looking at many retro 1960's graphics i found that a lot of them i came across used similar colour schemes, and some of the most common colours were reds, creams, whites and light blues as shown below. This could have something to do with the American flag with the white, red and blues and the fact that a lot of these examples were inspired from 60's America i can see why these examples have these colours and are very common.

Imagery:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/110619734567411811/
http://cdnimg.visualizeus.com/thumbs/67/97/poster,retro,typography-67972116263bb467a81cec02b4acbba0_h.jpg
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/134404370099511020/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/67624431877100713/




Since The Outsiders is set in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the US in the 1960's I decided it would be good to incorporate these colours in my own design. Now this wasn't because i'm too lazy and want to copy what everyone else is using for colours its because before i even did the research into retro 60's graphics as i was sketching i  was thinking of using a black for the BG and light colours to contrast it and these colours, cream,red,white,black and blue were the colours i thought of before.

This colour scheme will most likely be the main colour choices for my poster and book cover for The Outsiders. What makes these colours work so well is the contrast with light and dark, i think it would be appropriate to use a black background for the cover because its about rebellion and gangs so its a bit more of a darker book for teenager than a happy one, because of the themes and story and genre of the book on a whole. Using light colours from the imagery and title will make it bold and eye catching and stand out so i hope i achieve this when i start making the cover for the book and hope the final outcome will be how i vision it in my head so far.

More 1960's Graphics (Imagery/Type/Colours)

Since The Outsiders is my chosen book i wanted to look into a lot of 1950 - 1960's retro graphics, through visuals and typography and colour schemes from the imagery etc. Even though i had looked at a few examples before i really wanted to broaden out more with retro/vintage styles and find more and look at different ways it interpreted. Also its set in America i wanted to lean more to some 1960 retro graphics which relate to that era in America.

These are a selection of imagery and type combined which have an inspired theme from the 1950's to 1960's of the 'retro' style which uses a selection of type and textures and colours which were very commonly used back in the time of the 60's. The colour on most of the examples is very bright, some with more pastel colours than others but have that sense of 1960's America with the design, colour choices and overall appearance and layout. A range of type that is used to give it more of an interest and some type being used like slab serif for example really adds to the retro feel and gives a highly inspired look to the 60's.

Imagery:
http://idesignow.com/inspiration-2/retro-vintage-typography-design-inspiration.html#.Uo1A2MS9DIc
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/240942648784468835/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/268738302735641459/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/516577019728364018/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/210121138834392170/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/370702613049334325/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/533746993307138280/

Justin Skeesuck

Above are a couple examples of 1960 graphics made by Justin Skeesuck and was influenced by the matchboxes from the 1960's. The aspects i really like about these examples is its graphic style with no outlines on the characters and the shaping and simplicity of them which give it that 60's inspired look to it, in its design it's also very minimalistic and making both of the examples look visually appealing to look at. LINK: 

Colour

Something i noticed whilst researching 'retro' 60's related graphics is that a lot of them used similar colours, and one of the colour palettes included contrasting colours like, blues,creams,reds and blacks. This is not only on imagery and background but typography as well on some of these examples. These colours made me think of including the palette in my own design. I originally thought of what colours to use as i was first sketching my ideas and after seeing these examples its encouraged me to use a similar colour palette to the ones above in the examples. This palette has a very contrasting and appealing look about it and also something i noticed it somewhat uses the colours from the American flag, except the blue is more of a light blue/green than a dark blue but still gives that retro American look to some of these examples. Because the palette works so well together it'll most likely be the main reason why i'll use these colours for my final colour palette in my book cover design for The Outsiders.

Imagery:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/67624431877100713/

http://thedesigncaravan.blogspot.co.uk/2010_07_01_archive.html

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/134404370099511020/

http://cdnimg.visualizeus.com/thumbs/67/97/poster,retro,typography-

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/2814818486835252/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/110619734567411811/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/37014028157752889/

Typography

These are some examples i found of 'retro' or 'vintage' Graphics that incorporated some typography into various work, using it as their core visual attraction to the work. All of these are different and a lot of them have the 'American' and 'retro' inspired aspect to them which is what i was looking for. I noticed that some of them use the gritty/dirty texture not only in just the background but in parts of the type and I've seen it in a lot of imagery relating to the 'retro' 1960's look. Since 'Helvetica' was big around the time as well as san serif in general these inspired 60's styles do use a mixture of type including a lot of san serif text. Some of these examples to use slab serif text, which is more bulkier and seen a lot in this time period and makes me think of diner signs and posters in the US back in the 60's. With my type for the title of my cover I've seen a few fonts and i do like the slab serif look but I've also found some hand drawn, scruffy fonts which would work really well with the book and the story, since its about gangs.

Imagery:
http://designspiration.net/image/210268555932/
http://indulgy.net/Db/i3/eh/22518066856335905PhdL8xk3c.jpg
http://www.designbolts.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Love-Typography-design-Poster-2-01.jpg
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/79305643411255555/
Design-Studio-34563453.jpg
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/310678074264900810/

Other Various Imagery

A lot of these examples of imagery inspired around the 50's - 60's make the appearance look very minimalistic and simple but effective. The imagery isn't that detailed and uses a small colour palette to make it look more simplistic but visually appealing. Some of these examples use contrasting colours making the imagery more effective and eye catching i especially like the 3rd one with the woman's legs and the leakage from her lags its works really well and is visually pleasing and intriguing. The 2nd one with the perfume bottle is very attractive and i love the pencil style the artist uses to give it more of a personal, and informative look to it, looking more hand drawn, and this is something i want my cover to look like, hand drawn and informal to give it a unique and nice illustrative look towards it.

Imagery:

http://designspiration.net/image/178116834035/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/139541288427907214/

Here above is some other various 'retro' inspired 60's America graphic design, some of these examples use a variety of different typography, serif, san serif and slab serif which makes it look very modern and complex but still gives that retro 60's feel to it with the small colour scheme and the choice of colours, like reds, creams, whites and blues. I particularly like the coke bottle top which really gives that America vibe to it with a vintage twist to it.

Imagery:

http://designspiration.net/image/1238336211587/

http://idesignow.com/inspiration-2/retro-vintage-typography-design-inspiration.html#.Uo1A2MS9DIc

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/258957047295650464/

Milton Glaser

I looked into more 60's retro/vintage styles and i came across some of Milton Glaser's art work which was 1960 inspired. Milton Glaser is an American graphic designer and some of his work was used with Push Pin Studios to get it noticed through media and different countries as photography had dominated the industry of design at the time and they wanted to shown that graphic design could be just as powerful and visually appealing and attractive. Making these types of designs helped to get noticed around the world and the US and was very successful. Pin Push Studios not only make graphic design but also make typography which is inspired my the 1960's and some examples of their type is in some of these images above of their work.

Imagery:
http://blog.i2fly.com/?p=2510
http://www.thedrakehotel.ca/blog/2013/01/if-you-want-be-smart-take-art/
http://sweetjanespopboutique.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/vintage-ad-milton-glaser.html

Other resources: 'retro graphic design pocket essentials' page 208

The aspects l love about his work is the silhouette and contrast from the black and white then the striking and bold colours from the hair which makes the overall impression look very unique and eye catching and i love his style of work.