Synergy Text

Throughout the creation of my practical project I have taken inspiration from what I learnt about Penguin and its history. I found that Penguin’s most popular series/collections were made with consistent cover layouts that used grids; in order to achieve this I used the Marber Ratio grid that I analysed within my essay to help place my title and author making it easy to read. I also kept my spine, back and front layouts the same leaving them easy to recognise as a collection. I also did a lot of research into how Penguin used colour within their designs to help connote certain feelings and stories. This helped inform how I could use colour to symbolise certain aspects of the books’ storylines while making the colours visually work well together. Another part of my essay looked into how Penguin modernise their classic designs by using current designers and looking into the cultural values and audience at the time. When looking at my audience and current time I see us now in 2017/18 as being in the era of technological advancements and that generations are using phones and tablets more than ever before. But even with this knowledge I did not create an ebook design or something digital as I researched into the statistics of how Penguin are still able to have raising printed sales whereas their ebooks sales are on a decrease and this is due to their successful designs that can only be achieved through a print platform. All of this knowledge helped me to be influenced by technology in my designs therefore visually being more appealing to the audience. To conclude, my practical work would not have been as successful if it hadn’t have been informed by my essay and research into Penguin as a brand and its successes.

Overall Outcomes

Looking into my Final Collection designs I am pleased within the overall theme and constituency. My idea of having a collection made up of one story is unique and I feel would work well within the book community encouraging the audience to want to collected and read more. I feel it was important within my designs to have the penguin image on the side link the books together as it is visually appealing to make the collection work as one while on a shelf. I took inspiration from previous successful collections from Penguin designers but I choose to create a series with a more strict audience and purpose which was I bring a essence of Technology to classic WW2 book. Therefore bring in a new audience to the Penguin brand. Through my essay I learnt that it is important to have the knowledge of what is modern and hone in on the cultural values of the audience like Penguin has done in the past. 

Printing decisions

Spending a lot of time in bookshops I found that people tend to pick up books they are not even interested in just to feel them and run there fingers over the different textures and levels. Therefore I wanted my designs to feel more tactile. Due to my subtle hint to technology within my designs I wanted to enhance the theme with touch. The lighter colour on my covers which is the boarders, lines and background numbers, would be raised and in a shiney stock to separate it from the other darker colours. The rest of the design will be lower and a matt shock. 

When putting my designs together I feel like the gradual colour changes works well and I really like the mix of blues and reds within my designs. Putting the designs in a flat layout helps me to better see how my front, back and spine covers work together.

I showed my designs to a 13 year old who is not a big fan of reading and she said,

'I love the colours of the covers, I am drawn to the big numbers because it helps me know what order to read the books, I don't usually take notice of who made the books but I cant help but look at the penguin on the cover.'

Even getting only a small amount of feedback from a younger audience at this stage helped because I was able to see that I was successfully promoting Penguin as a brand helping them to be more noticed by the upcoming generations rather than just the older generations.

Illustrations

After I had many peoples feedback that I should include illustration to my design I decided it was a good way to show what was in each chapter but also to represent key characters. This means people who haven't read the story will be intrigued by the images and want to understand them however people who have read it will have the knowledge and understand the link to the narrative and story. The illustrations also make the covers look less flat by overlapping certain parts making the images appear to be coming out of the 'Phone screen' style background. The style of my images are hand drawn in with white strokes. This is due to a part of the story that the main character spends a lot of time writing in white chalk, these drawings give the effect that the main character has drawn them. This gives the audience more of a link to the characters.

When creating my illustrations it took some trial and error. I kept getting constant feedback from others of wether all of my illustrations fit together as a set and wether they were easy understandable. I had to change some of my designs to keep a more constituent line width to make them look better as a collection and these where my final choices.

Don't Judge a New Cover by the Old Book

I found an article while researching that I found very interesting it was written by Jen Doll in 2013 where she interviewed Penguin designers about why it is important to re-design old classics.
It talks about how classics have been around for so long there is bound to be many covers creating to keep them up to date.

My favourite book designer Coralie Bickford Smith is quoted saying 

"I truly admire some of the iconic covers from the past for certain classic pieces of literature, but from a selfish point of view as a designer of books, if the original cover had stuck, I would have never have got to design covers for such a incredible bunch of historic authors."

"If I don't understand and immerse myself in the content how can I communicate the insides on the outside in a way that will speak to an audience?

I highly agree with this as I feel it can be hard to be able to design for a book without knowing the content as how can you best promote the story inside. Its like trying to sell a house that you've never seen inside of.

Another of my favourite designers was also featured in the essay, Paul Buckley. 
He was quoted to have said

 'We are here to represent the book, to get readers excited about the book, and to sell it — and we have a split-second to catch your eye as it scans the crowded bookstore. Hence the cover must stand out with distinction, the copy should be readable, and the overall effect should be enticing. This is true for every book, regardless of genre.'

I am talking about one of each of their classic collections within my essay as I feel they both have cleverly modernised classics to stand out on modern day bookshelves. 

Paul Buckley Drop Cap series

Coralie Bickford Smiths Cloth Bound Classics

Spine Development

 When I began designing the spines I went with a normal layout of book title and author facing to the left featuring the number of the book and penguin logo on each. When I placed the spines together as  if they were sitting on a shelf I liked the gradient and how they flowed well together however I did not like the repetitiveness. It made it look busy and unnecessary having the same information multiple times together. I began experimenting with having the text just once but only readable when the books are all together. It worked better but still didn't look as interesting as I wanted therefore I thought I should get some feedback from other designers. After discussing my problem they felt it was not important to include the title or author on the spines as that information is really only necessary on the cover. I decided that since the covers are promoting the story and what is in the chapters so the spines can promote the series as a collection. Therefore my final spine design when all put together shows the penguin logo and spells out generation. This leaves a more simplistic look but also symbolic promoting penguin as a brand. It is also fun as when the spines are separate it leaves an abstract pattern that only forms the image when they are all together.

Initial Designs

To begin I used the Penguin Marber Ratio Grid which I found whilst writing my essay to create a basic text layout for the cover.  I liked the idea of using big numbers to show what number book it is in the series as with the consistency of the cover I found it would not be as obvious what order the books should go in. I didn't want to use many colours other than Blue and red within my designs to keep to my theme.

I felt that different variations of Gill Sans worked with my covers as a serif font would feel to traditional whereas the sans serif font relates more to technology and is know for being easy to read for all audiences and has been on the covers of Penguin books throughout its history.

I found a way of including a subtle link to technology within my cover through layout. On the cover there is a boarder which resemble an iPhone or iPad screen, along with the placement of the penguin logo to resemble a home button. I also found the layout of the text was similar to a lock screen time and date. this means the audiences eye would be drawn to the text as the eyes would be used to focusing on that area of a phone screen making it easy to read. On the back cover I used the antenna bands as seen on a iPhone 6 to place the text but more to follow though from the boarder on the front cover. Using the penguin logo on the back like the apple brand mark on a device it is a subtle way of promoting the brand. On the back I included the information of what number the book was in the series.

I decided on 'Penguin Generation Collection' as the name of the series as I wanted it to show that the collection is meaning to bring the attention of a younger generation by its use of the modernisation of the design by the influence of technology.

I had a critique with fellow designers and within this I gained some points of how to improve my design and what was successful about my idea.

• The technology element is subtle therefore it doesnt take away from the fact that the book is set in WW2.
• The constancy is good however there needs to be something shown on the covers that shows what is inside/represents the chapters included.
• The designs look quite flat is there a way of making them stand out more.
• Can I make the spines or cover join together in some way to make the collection even more satisfying to collect.
• Could I add some textures?

It was an overlying opinion that people thought it was a clever idea to have the collection made up of one book and to progress within my design I am going to look more into the illustrations.