Existing books found in waterstones top sellers. They're all very dark and dynamic, I wanted my designs to be more simple to stand out from these.
For this design I wanted to focus on something quite abstract and less cliche for a crime book. I used hand drawn typography for the book title as I think it makes it stand out more as well as looking more chilling. The imagery is from a photograph I took of crushed glacier cherries which I think look fleshy like bullet wounds. I filtered the image and edited it to match the style of typography, I used bold futura for the authors name as I think it contrasts well with the hand written typography, to chose the colour I swatched the imagery and picked out this dirty purple colour as I wanted to relate to the first book cover for 'In Cold Blood' that was created. Truman Capote insisted that a dark red/purple colour should've been used instead of red to reference the crime being old and unsolved for a while. I think using a white background simplifies the book and would make it stand out amongst the others in waterstones. I didn't really focus on the design for the back but if I was to go with this design I would carry on the colour scheme and see if there was a way to stretch or continue the image onto the back.
This design is based on the fact that 'In Cold Blood' was first printed in the New York Times before it was published as a book therefore I wanted to bring in a newspaper element to the design. I chose a newspaper that used helvetica to add a more modern edge rather than the blackletter used in The New York Times. I think the image adds mystery associated with murder which I like. The colour orange was used to attract attention as well as relating to the fact the family are religious as the colour orange represents evil in the bible. I swatched this shade of orange from the penguin symbol as I wanted it to blend in well and be the only colour use. I think the orange could also represent the vitality and sunshine associated with their life before they were murdered. The box at the bottom is used to break things up and also bring focus onto the authors name which related to S. Neil Fujita and how he believe the author sold the book better than the title.
The idea of using cherries is based on the fact that Nancy Clutter (the daughter) taught one of the girls in the village how to make cherry pies on the last day she was alive. I took a cherry and dipped it in red food colouring to represent blood. I liked the drips it created that look like blood splatters so decided to use them in my design as well. For the typeface I used Didone as this was used for the first film poster created for 'In Cold Blood'
This imagery is based on the same idea for my last design however I took the cherry pie rather than just the cherry. I tried to create similar imagery digitally but found it much easier to take an actual photo. Looking back I think to 'blood' puddle would look better extending and running into the text. I used an ink splatter paintbrush on illustrator to replicate a blood splatter and ran this through the text as well as the back of the book. If I was to continue with this I would take my own image of blood splatters instead of using the brush affect.
I used the imagery of the 4 splattered glacier cherries here again, I wanted an image that spanned the whole cover of the book. I used the image in black and white to replicate a much more sinister feeling behind it. I used futura to keep things simple and I think it works well to add a more modern edge to the design.
THE CRIT
Overall I found the crit really useful and enjoyed looking at everyones different ideas and designs and the feedback I got was really useful as well.
The design that people liked the most was the single cherry idea. It was suggested to possibly put crumbs on the back cover to bring in this reference to Nancy baking.
Another idea was to use a photocopy of a cherry pie recipe to be more subtle with the idea.
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