Colour Scheme

The  Colour scheme I have chosen for my book cover I went for a mixture of film noir and modern interpretations of Saul Bass work as these were the art styles that have influenced my book cover. I tried to mix the tow styles by using the red and blue to link back too Saul Bass' style with the grey, white and black linking in with film noir. 

Art Styles - Saul Bass

I didn't want to go with just film noir as the influence for the art style on my cover as it is what is expected from the big sleep and has been done numerous times. This made me want to mix it up a little and look at other possibilities that I could combine with the film noir feel, my initial art led me too look into Saul Bass as his style was similar. 

By similar I meant that his drawing style of people was similar because of the way they are distorted and not all the body parts are fully connected. For example looking at the range of posters he created here you can see the people are done in a unique style, i found it interesting that you could still tell even though some of it was pretty extreme like the arm in the bottom left which is very jagged and looks very different to an actual arm.  

However after looking through a range of his work I thought his style might be a little too extreme for what I wanted to and for the big sleep in general. So I started looking for different takes on Saul Bass' work and from this I found the "Catch me if you can" title sequence which is a modern take on his work and is reminiscent of the 50's with the it's colour style and the clothing on the people. Another aspect of this title sequence that I liked was that it reminded me of film noir with the men in suits, leaning against walls, wearing hats all reminiscent of film noir style. Also the colours linked back to film noir with blacks and blues and there were also some other darker colours used at different sections in the title sequence. 

So I decided that this modern interpretation of Saul Bass' work mixed with film noir style would be the main influences on the art style for my cover. 

Typography

To get an idea of the type of typography I wanted to use in my idea I looked at typography associated with film noir and also typography seen in the 1930's. I did this as film noir is want I want to use as the art style for my idea so looking at the typefaces it used would give me a good idea of the type of style the fonts had, also I looked at the 1930's fonts because this is when the book the big sleep was released so using a type face based off this time period would work for the book. 

Looking at the the different screenshots the fonts were retro and and reminiscent of art deco with the shapes and different sizes they use. 

The titles screens in film noir movies had a mixture of fonts that were obviously different to suit the film they were featured on.  

I wanted the font I use on my book cover to be inspired by these film noir titles and be reminiscent of the time I selected a range at first that I thought would be suitable before looking at them further. 

The first font I looked at was manifest I thought it linked back to the film noir style well with the uneven shapes in the letters and some of the letters going below the baseline which adds to the vintage feel of the font.

I also looked at fonts with a slightly different style to vintage america this font is based on old typewriters which were used in the 1930's the same time the book is set. So because of this I thought the font would work on the cover of the book. However the font doesn't link in with the film noir feel that much and this is the kind of theme I was going for.

This is another font that goes back too the film noir style with the uneven lines that make up the letters for example the N which shows this well with the thin lines either side of the thick line that makes up the N this is the theme throughout the font. Another aspect of the font is the curvy lines that are around some parts of the letter, it give the font a nice balance of straight lines and curves. 

This font is another one reminiscent of film noir and also has an art deco feel to it. The shapes and the flowing lines made me think about the art deco movement. For example the H and the E have this overflowing effect also the lines have the uneven feel to them again similar to the previous fonts.

A finer font which has a retro feel to it the font itself is really simple but looks really clean and tidy. A bit more structured than the other type faces I have looked at as well.

The betty noir font is the font I think I will go will it has really nice lettering and again a retro feel that looks from the 50's so it will fit the art style without a problem. But out of all the fonts it looks the best and most effective for my cover.

The Big Sleep Imagery style

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classical film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the last depression. 
(Definition taken from - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir)

Although film noir is a style of cinematography I was more interested in it as an art style. 

As you can see from the definition film noir was based around and inspired from the hardboiled crime novels and because of this the imagery associated with the big sleep is often based around film noir. The characters fit the stereotypes from this film style as well as this the story is moody and atmospheric another key aspect of film noir. On top of this the story is American and although set before the film noir style happened the imagery and the style of the book fits. The lack of images in the book mean people will interpret the different scenes and described imagery in there own way but in my opinion it all leads back to the film noir style. 

For example this image of a man from film noir could be anyone as it is not specified but it could easily be seen as detective Marlowe from the book as it suits his characters completely showing the stereotypes of this style. This one being the gritty detective and the other stereotypes being deadly dames, drunken losers, dangerous hoods, crooked cops, dreamers of broken dreams, and flawed heroes. 

All of these match up to the characters from the big sleep for example Carmen matches the deadly dame and the bad guys from the book like Geiger match the dangerous hoods stereotype even if it is loosely. This started to create the imagery in my head of these different characters and the different scenes all in the film noir style. The story as well fits into the film noir style as it involves treachery and hidden secrets which are aspects of film noir style plots. 


Also artists from this time have a distinct style such as Edward Hopper his most famous piece of art being his painting entitled nighthawks which is meant to capture a lonely night scene in america painted in 1942 it was painted just after the period where the big sleep is set (1930's) it is a restaurant scene where the art style is very reminiscent of film noir movies. 

Looking at the existing book covers

To get an idea of the sort of covers that these books already had I decided to look at a number of there existing ones in the hope of finding some inspiration. 

First off I looked at book covers for the wind in the willows and the key themes that stood out were the nature scenes being used as the main imagery linking with the green colour schemes as well as the at least on of the four main characters being  visible.  Like this cover here for example the colours are bright and colourful which works well for the target audience as this is a childrens book, the target audience will be also be attracted by the animal characters previously mentioned. The cover shows a nice scene and the viewer can see that the animals are friends and gives a calm feel to the cover. This cover works well but the rest of the covers I found are very similar so there's nothing that original or standout, most covers feature the boat and the characters as mentioned above. 



The colour schemes also change a little but the majority are just a mixture of greens to go with the different outdoor scenes on the numerous covers. There were a few covers that stood out a little though as they moved away from the river bed scene. 

This one for example shows the characters arriving at toad hall together the imagery is specific and shows a key elements from the book such as the characters, the car and toad hall. It also shows part of the story as well as key elements I think this cover works as it shows who's in the book and also suggests what it is about. For example the mansion and the car play a big part in the story and obviously the characters do as well. As mentioned above it moves aways form the river bed scene so the colour feature less green and more browns it is still colourful but not as colourful as the previous cover. 





This cover is the other cover that stood out to me as the colours are completely different from the ones above, this is because it moves the scene of the cover to part of the story where badger is met in his snowy cabin. This meant the greens from previous covers don't feature which is good as it mixes it up when looking at the covers together. The cover art style is also not as cartoony as the over covers adding a more serious feel to the book. One thing about this cover however is even though it is a scene from the book it gives off a christmas feel with the snow and the attire in the cover at least to me make it seem like a christmas story. 

Overall however looking at these covers the ideas behind them are taken from key parts or scenes of the book and all feature at least one character. Because of this the different covers work for the book however a lot of the covers are pretty similar featuring the character the boat and the river bed, so I found the art style of the drawings to have a big impact as to which cover you prefer.  




The Big Sleep covers - 

The other choice of book was the big sleep which had a very different style of book cover to the wind in the willows and looking through a range of covers for the big sleep it was interesting to see the range of art styles and covers. They ranged from film noir style to cartoon style drawings, there was also a mix of colours used throughout the covers. The imagery of the covers was similar however all using character, items or scenes from the book, the cover on the left for example we know the man is detective Marlowe from the book.  This particular cover uses the film noir style with the atmospheric feel the emphasis on the smoke as well as man looking like a generic detective from film noir cinematography.  This cover also has a more serious feel than some of the other covers I looked at this comes a real photo being used also with no expression visible from the man it aids a sense of mystery to the cover. 





This cover greatly contrast with this one above with a completely different feel and look using bright colours and hand drawn imagery.  This cover moves away from the film noir style and gives more of a classic feel as a murder mystery the gun however does keep a level of seriousness to the book cover.  Also the hand drawn style is more eye catching than the photo because of the colours and the size of the imagery the gun is central on the cover and red colour contrasts with the yellow. 











This cover is a mixture of the other covers I have looked at above in my opinion because it combines the film noir style with hand drawn imagery.  The colours really compliment each other well and the red doesn't overpower the grey or change the fell of cover to dramatically. It is also not a bright red so it fits the gritty film noir theme of the cover and could be interpreted a blood. The imagery used on the cover works really well in my opinion and the man in the trench coat is obviously the main detective character also the positioning so he goes under the red square which works well in covering it up rather than blacking the face out.  I really like this cover as the cartoon art style has been mixed with the film noir style and I think it works really well. 




This is the original book cover of the big sleep very simple probably because it was designed in the 1930's when the book was published. The colour scheme of the cover is basic with three colours being red, blue and white the typography is interesting however as it appears to float above the cover with it's shadow underneath the perspective is also add to the floating effect in the way it is positioned. 

Brief research into the books

After reading through the brief I was not sure which book I should base my project on so at first I decided to take a brief look into each book.

So - 

The Big Sleep - Is a hardboiled crime novel based in 1930's America written by Raymond Chandler. The story is about a detective named Phillip Marlowe working for the rich Sternwood family dealing with a blackmailer the story however becomes much more complex as characters begin to double cross one another. The book comes across as very film noir and the the characters are all stereotypical especially Detective Marlowe as he is tough, gritty, clever and also honest. The key themes in the book are corruption in American seen in the characters and the American depression as Marlowe mentions money as an ideal throughout the book.  

The Wind In The Willows -  Is a classic children's book written by Kenneth Grahame, the story is about four animal friends a badger, a rat, a mole and a toad, the story is based on the animals friendship and concern for toad who is reckless and always getting into trouble. For a children's book some of the themes are more sinister than you would expect showing the consequences of toad's reckless obsessions. 

AF101 - The New Assignment

Today I was handed the brief for the new assignment titled AF101 Visual Communication for this project we have asked to create a book cover for the penguin design award competition. There are two books too choose from for this project the adults book 'The Big Sleep' and the children's book 'The Wind And The Willows' 

For this project I must produce -

• A Sketchbook 
• A Blog 
• A Book Cover Design (using illustrator, photoshop and inDesign)
• An A2 poster based on my cover design
• A set of branding guidelines for my cover and poster
• A short statement to accompany my designs showing an understanding of visual communication considerations.

For this project I can also use the brief taken from the penguin competitions website - 

• The Big Sleep - http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/penguindesignaward/penguin_brief.php

• The Wind In The Willows - http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/penguindesignaward/puffin_brief.php

Evaluation

My Poster

I have now finished the project and overall I am fairly happy with my final poster seen here. First off it answers the brief by promoting and aspect of social media this being following on twitter in the style of propaganda taken from the 1900 - 1950's my inspiration being form world war two. I am happy with the poster itself as it looks pretty much how I had planned, the colours are sourced form the original poster minus the twitter colours so I think these work well together and the blue of the birds really stands out and makes these the focal point of the poster. At first I thought the blue might be too strong to work and look out of place but I think it works and fits in with the rest of the poster. 

I am really happy with the typography for the poster at first the font I had chosen to use didn't really work or look like the original but after the crit I changed this based on the feedback I got and the new font really works in my opinion and links back the original poster but also the timeframe of ww2 I also think the hash tag in the word following works as you can tell it is a hash tag but also the text stay readable and this is what I was aiming for. 

I think I could of improved the birds however as I struggled to draw these in 3d like the original so I settled for 2d with a similar perspective to the barrel in the original poster.  I would have liked to experiment a little bit more here with the 3d effects in illustrator to see what I could of created or at least practised drawing a 3d twitter bird to see if I could create something better than the birds I eventually used. 

Overall I am happy with my final poster but I still think there are areas I could of tidied up a little as well as a few more experiments I could of tried on my work. 

Ideas and Issues 

At first I found it hard to decide what aspect of social media I wanted to promote in my poster. However as I researched more into the my chosen areas of propaganda I found that ideas started forming based around these poster and the aspect fitted into these ideas. This is where my first solid idea came from based around the someone talked poster I researched I came up with the idea to promote poking on Facebook as the giant hand led me to this aspect and the imagery of the poster was really strong. After developing this idea further however I decided that it would not really work or have the effect I would want as finding something to go in the hand that was as powerful as the original posters imagery was near impossible and I began to doubt the idea and how well it would look. 

This is the first main issue I had in the project but I found coming up with ideas a lot easier now I had a sense of the propaganda I was going to use as inspiration and I decided to go along with my of new ideas which I really liked based on the aspect of followers on twitter. I developed this idea in my sketchbook coming up with the imagery I wanted and the slogans and taglines I would use on my poster as well as looking at colours. 

Other issues I cam up with was my limited knowledge of illustrator but as the project went on I learnt more about the program and started to overcome these problems to make my poster. 

Pitches and Crit

I found the pitches and the crit to be a very helpful process on the project as you get everyones views on your work and ideas. Which gives you a nice range of views to work from. Particularly on the crit as everyone has a different opinion on what worked and what didn't on your poster so you always have something to improve on or justify. The pitch this project whilst being helpful at the time I think my change in ideas meant I didn't everyones opinion on my new idea which made it hard to see if people liked it or thought it would work, so if I did the project again I would of like to pitch my new and final idea rather than the idea I had at the time which looking back now I think is pretty weak. 

Blog and Sketchbook

First off on the blog I thought my research was thorough and detailed into the different ranges of propaganda, at first however it was really broad and covered most any propaganda from the 1900 to the 1950's but I thought I narrowed it down well to styles or artists of propaganda that interested me and that I would think about using as inspiration for my poster. These were the Spanish style propaganda from the civil war in 1938 and Henry Koerner who created american propaganda during world war two I thought my further research into these areas was again detailed but also relevant and useful to what I wanted to do with my poster.

Once the research was done I thought I kept the blog up to date so people could see where I was going with my ideas and the main inspiration behind them as well as keeping people up to date on how I used illustrator to make my poster. I explained my change of ideas half way through the project and the reasons behind this and the new idea I was going to use. As well as putting in pictures of some rough sketches of my ideas so I could explain these further and in more detail than if they were just in the sketchbook. 

Finally I used the blog to post about the progress of my poster and how I was making the different sections and the tools I was using to do this.    

Overall I though I used the sketchbook well throughout my project getting loads of the ideas I thought off down in the sketchbook in rough sketches at first but the ideas I liked I tried to experiment with and draw up in more detail so the idea would become more developed than before. Also featured some drawing practise here and research to show my progress on the project in my sketchbook as well as my blog. 

Making my poster - The Twitter birds

At first I had struggled to draw the twitter birds free hand in illustrator so I thought the best way to go would be to take a twitter bird from the internet draw round it in illustrator using the pen tool before placing it into photoshop to get the colours right. Then I lived traced the bird back into illustrator and here what it looked like - 

After playing around with the perspectives of the birds I finally found the perspective I wanted copied out the layer and moved the other birds into a position similar to the original and that I was happy with. 












Finally to finish the birds I added in some lines the same colour as the birds and then added a blur effect to them and placed the behind each bird in a similar perspective. To finish this I added in the text for this part using the font I had used for the rest of the poster and coloured it whit to stand out on the different background. 

Making My Poster - The Text and Typography

After finding the font I wanted to use I wrote the text I wanted for my poster into illustrator I did a new layer for each line of text this way it would be easier to position correctly on my poster. After I had positioned the text I used the line tool to first create the lines linking the main slogan. 










Then I used the line tool to create the hash tag shape and resized it so it fitted into the text, but also kept the text readable here is what it looked like on the poster. 

I didn't want to put lines through actual text to make the hash tag as I thought the text would not be right and the hash tag would not be as clear. 





Here what the final text looked like after I changed the issues raised in my crit.

Poster After The Crit

Here is my poster after the crit - 

As you can see I have completely redone all of the typography on the poster which I now think is a lot stronger and works more than it did before, also I have added the gaussian blur effect to the black cloud shapes to give the overall imagery a bigger sense of movement. Overall I think these smal changes make my poster a lot better. 

Also I have not yet fixed the line issue for the twiiter birds but this should be done for my finished poster. 

Making My Poster - The Backgrounds

The first thing I wanted to do is recreate the background effects from the original poster because I wanted to use them in my own work. So the first one is the main paper background for the whole poster I wanted to use this in my work as it shows that the poster is aged and vintage but also printed and it gave a really nice effect around the edges of the poster. To recreate this I took the pen tool and drew round the edges of the original to get the overall shape by this I mean the little creases and tears around the page, once I had drawn round them with the pen tool I used a few different shades of brown to give the old paper effects and highlight the rips a tears more. I did this around all the edges of the orginal using the pen tool and joining up the lines so I created the rectangle shape I needed but it had details from the original poster. I then coloured in the whole thing with a final shade of brown taken from the original.  This is what I got - 

To add in a few more effect I uses the line tool to recreate the creases from the original poster after drawing them out I turned them into a slightly darker colour from the main background and added gaussian blur to the lines so they were not as straight or a solid as they were. I then turned down there opacity a little so they are not as notcieable similar to the creases in the original poster.

Finally I didn't think the background looked right because it had no texture so I borught in a old paper texture live traced it into illustrator. Placed it at the bottom of the layer behind the the background I had made. This gave the backgorund some texture and added to the vintage effect I was going for.







The other Background that I had to create was the green and black gradient that was behind the barrels in the original at first I wasn't sure where to start but I decided to create a green background and overlay the black cloud shape onto it much like the original poster. I thought using blend should be best way to create the green background. So I created a rectangle and made it a dark green colour and then copied this rectangle and made it a lighter green colour. Then I went to object - blend and created a smooth blend between the two which made a nice green gradient between the rectangles however it was just solid colours so it did not look right so I added in the grain effect to give it some sort of texture this was the result - 

 I was happy with this so I moved onto created the black cloud effect in the original poster, to do this I used the pen tool to get the shape of the clouds. Once I had drawn round it I had the rough shape Next I added in a radial blur to make the edges darker and then I turned down the opacity of the layer down show the green behind shined through. i was happy with this and thought it was very similar to the original. 

Overall my backgrounds looked like this - 

Possible second Idea

After deciding I was going to use Henry Koerners work as my main inspiration I still had some ideas based of the spanish civil war themed propaganda and I wanted to atleast try to create something based of off this. So I started drawing up the ideas in my sketch book and here are the ones below are the main ones I am considering.

I there is time I will develop one of these ideas further and make it for my second poster.

Initial Sketches

After finally deciding on what I was using as the inspiration for my poster I began to sketch ideas based of off this laying out what I wanted to do and the different options and idea I had based off of this. The rough sketches below give a basic idea of what  I want to achieve the the barrels from the roignal will turn into to twitter birds which was an immediate thought then I started thinking about the different ways I could draw the twitter on the poster and whether or not to have three bird like the original barrels or chnage it to incorperate just one I also played around with the perspectives of how the birds would appear.

In the end I decided to stick with just  all three birds being in the poster to me it made more sense as the aspect I was promoting was following and hinting at this with one bird would not of really worked and I though the three birds all moving in the same direction might give the impression they were following something. 

 



I also played around with the slogans I was going to use in my poster I wanted to keep the "keep'em" text from the original and it was not hard to incorperate into my idea and is a nice homage to the original poster. I decide to have the main tagline of "keep'em Following" but to also use the two l's in following as a hashtag as seen here which I really liked and I thought it would look good but also kepp the text readable. 

After this played with the other tagline on the poster I wanted to keep them in roughly the same structure as the roginal so after trying out a few I decided on "Interesting tweets keep'em coming back" as the one above the main image and "help twiiter, your followers and yourself" as the tagline below the image it suggest that to keep people following them or too get people following them they need to be interesting. I thought these slogans worked and made sense as well as keeping to the structure of the original poster. 

 

In my sketches I played with the colour scheme a little to give a rough I dea of what I was going to use I decided to keep most of the colours the same but change the colours in the main image instead of having the three different colour like the original I wanted to have the twitter bird colours here on the twitter it made sense and would be a link back to twitter and maskes sure people know what the poster is about. 

Overall I really like this idea and I look forward to making it in illustrator.