From my research into Penguin's blog and website, I have identified a range of concerns that will need to be considered in order to grab the attention of the judges. I aim to specifically focus on typography because the judges emphasised the importance of a well considered typographical solution.
Highlighted Boo Radley as a key character because he slowly reveals himself as the book progresses and Scout and Jem's opinion of him dramatically changes.
Highlighted the fact that the story is written from Scout's perspective, 6-8 years old, which is naive and idealistic and when she is exposed to evil, she must learn how to understand people's motives in life. Focusing on Scout will add a new perspective to the cover that hasn't been done before.
Illustrative Concepts:
- A pair of trousers hanging over a fence - For people who have read the book, they'll understand the relevance. For people who haven't it will intrigue the audience to read the publication and find out its relevance.
- Scout has to deal with actions she doesn't completely understand such as Boo Radley and racial abuse in Maycomb at the time. These highlight ambiguous mockingbirds that can be interpreted as the story progresses:
Jem
Tom Robinson
Dill
Mr Raymond
Boo Radley
I printed out the mockingbird's names using the typographic styles I found during my research in order to create collages of the type. The ambiguity that the typographic collages provide will make the names illegible, so the audience can see it, however they won't understand it. This reflects Scout's perspective throughout the publication.
Typefaces inspired by my research - Predominantly sans-serif:
The range of stroke weights will hopefully create contrasting compositions. During the weaving process, I used different widths of paper for each weave so that I could create an ambiguous outcome - I do not want the words to be legible, otherwise it will give away the story and perhaps the reader will recognise the names once they've read it.
Weaving the type creates really engaging negative space due to the highly contrasting colour scheme, this will give it shelf presence which will be key to selling more copies.
The composition's vertical and horizontal reflects Scout's confused perspective, whilst the black and white colour scheme reflects the colours of a mockingird and style of 1930's print. These compositions can be developed further by taking it into traditional print and screen printing or monoprinting them as the textures would reflect the style of print from the 1930s.
Cecil Touchon
The negative space created by the serif/sans-serif typefaces reminds me of the work of Cecil Touchon
Visual Poetry:
Touchon's compositions highlight the anatomy of typography whilst the negative space makes the compositions more ambiguous. I can take advantage of the negative space in order to combine the image with the title and author.
Layout and Typographic Experimentation
A key theme throughout the book is injustice, so to illustrate this imbalance through typography, I adjusted the baseline shift. Used Helvetica to experiment with because of its simple and adaptable qualities:
Reversing 'To Kill' forces the audience to read it backwards which reflects the disjointed society and opinions reflected in the book, however it can lead to illegibility and miss perception. The balanced corners provide room for a large high impact image
The most ambiguous approach by making the text disjointed:
This will make the title of the publication harder to read, however due to the popularity of the book, even seeing 'Harper Lee' will suggest 'To Kill a Mockingbird' because it is her most famous book.
Combining my composition with required copy:
Using the negative space provided by my original scans, I tried to combine the title and author into the composition, however this became problematic as the typographic composition blends in with the cover copy.
Manipulated and combined compositions to provide me with more negative space for the type to fit and also add more angles to the typography, better presenting Scout's distorted and confused perspective of the events.
Addition of type:
Currently struggling to apply the type to a busy composition so I referred back to Touchon and looked at the book covers that his work is involved with:
Interesting to see the relationship between text and shape. The typesetting has been adapted to suit each original composition as it is overlaid over the image obtrusively to fit within shapes and keep the focus on the copy. Rotating the type also creates balance with the shapes, depending on whether they are predominantly vertical or horizontal lines.
The composition forces me to break Modernist design principles however I aim to create harmony between the text and shapes by considering white space:
Typeface:
After experimenting with Helvetica, I aimed to use a typeface that was commonly used in 1930s America, however I had used 8 of them in the typographic composition. In order for the type to stand out, I selected Boton Medium because of its balanced and geometric qualities. It is also reminiscent of college (university) typefaces used in America:
Layout influenced by Marber's grid system:
Cropping the composition provides room for the type to breath, increasing legibility and overall impact. I considered making 'Harper Lee' smaller because her association with the title is strong, and placing it over inside the angular composition reflects the imbalance of injustice. The arrow also subtly points to the author.
As Penguin are looking for an original outcome, I aimed to explore more ambiguous solutions to the typography and composition. Again, the angled text takes advantage of the diagonal negative space and also mirrors the angle of 'Harper Lee' creating consistency within the chaos:
Straightening the title makes it more legible, ultimately giving the title of the publication more hierarchy, however the bold shapes contrast a lot with the white negative space which dominates the composition. As To Kill a Mockingbird is such a renowned and famous publication, maybe it is time for the title to be subtle, letting the shapes create ambiguity and leaving the audience to interpret the publication for themselves.
Based on my research into previous covers for To Kill a Mockingbird, this cover would definitely stand out primarily due to its ambiguity, but also because it is a completely typographic composition. The bold contrasting shapes created by the negative space makes the cover eye catching, however the monochromatic colour scheme makes the copy hard to distinguish from the imagery. This can be justified as my concept reflects the type through Scout's young perspective.
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