Over winter break, I went to Barnes and Noble and picked my holiday reading just by looking at the covers and the titles. Not good sounding or looking - Next! I don't even bother flipping it over just to "see" if the plot might be more impressive than the cover leads me to believe. The method worked. I ended up with two great bookstore finds (Sarah's Key and The Future of Us) through this method and choosing a book from a friend (Bringing Home the Hermes is so funny and excellent. I couldn't tell by the cover design or the writing that it was actually a non-fiction book, which I typically hate).
My mom, who is a librarian at a high school, says she always keeps the book jackets on her books because she knows that is what "sells" them to the readers/students at her school.
Why am I talking about book covers? Well, they are designed by graphic designers/editorial designers, obviously, but it was one of my assignments for the week.
My magazine design class was challenged to come up with 20 different cover designs for a series of books being published by the University of Missouri Press. We were given five book options, and we were to pick one.
I went with a Lewis and Clark type book about six brothers involved in the fur trade along the Missouri River, who were also pioneers heading west. Although I liked several of the other book ideas a little bit better (there was one about Girls, Beer and War and another about Mary Louise Smith), I decided to go with what I thought was a more challenging cover.
It was a challenge to come up with 20 ideas, but here they are:
These are not in the order that I did the designs except for the first "page." While I was skimming the book, there was a quote about seeing the red, white and blue being raised above St. Louis. Not being from Missouri, I had to get the whole "arch-thing" out of my system. I recognize that the arch wasn't even built until the 1960s, but it was the jumping off point.
The next three images on that page are some of my favorites because I felt like they look like real book covers. My favorite of all my designs was the one with the map of the Missouri river faded in the background with the cutout from the image provided. I thought it looked like a "real" book cover while still being design-y and more than just an image. The other two that use the whole picture reminded me of a book about the Melungeons, a group of tri-racial indians from Appalachia - pronounces App-a-latch-a, people, that I got when I went to the Governor's School for Tennessee History.
The next set of four are probably some of my least favorite. I was trying to work with the idea of fitting the six brothers in and trying to create something from, basically, not enough information on my part.
The third set of four has another one of my favorites. I wanted to do more with the fur trade, but all my ideas were kind of gross. There is just something unappealing about fur when its not already in coat format (although I am not a fan of real fur for clothing, so don't call PETA on me). I plan to do more with the trap, which I think could make a really nice cover.
In the next set, I was surprised how many of my classmates liked this map image over the one on the first page. I think I am going to work to combine the ideas a little for the final showing of these to the printing professionals, alliteration intended.
This last page has one of my other favorite covers, which was the orange, black and white type image. Although I don't know if it would work in a book store to draw your attention, I like the graphic element of this one with the different font weights. Also because I wasn't given and image of all the brothers, I thought this was a good way to get around that and tell more about who the brothers were through words.
I welcome more thoughts. Look for the final designs in the next week or so!
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