Book Cover

Research:

Chose a book I was familiar with because then I had a vague idea of what went on in the different scenes through out the book which I thought would give me an advantage over an unfamiliar book. Hans Christian Andersen was chosen, at first just for a book cover that was for a collection of fairy tales, this then changed to just focusing on The Snow Queen story.

Before narrowing down the focus to just the one story, research included looking at a selection of different books for H.C. Andersen's stories, as you can see below.

These are just a small selection of an extensive amount that were found. Some of the covers above were picked out to show how the faces of the cover are displayed for the viewer.

Figure 1                                                     Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4                                                           Figure 5

Terry Pratchett's books have featured in my work in previous years are the hardback styles of the most recent book covers (released from 2010 onwards) for the Diskworld have been the most appealing to me. Whilst getting the research these two book covers above for Grimm's and H.C. Andersen's fairy tales reminded me of Terry Pratchett's book covers as they both have an interesting illustrative quality to a relatively limited colour palette. Both books look as if they have embossed lettering and possibly gold foil, which is the same as the Diskworld books which has shiny lettering on the covers.

Unlike the rest of the books, the last cover for H.C. Andersen has a less defined boarder, the illustration in the centre doesn't reach the edges and the spine is the most decorative, which stands out from the rest because in reality, the spine will be seen the most when on a shelf at home, library or book store unless on a display.

Figure 6                                                                    Figure 7

Figure 8

Figures 6-8 set the time periods of the book, the aesthetic is old and familiar and sets the scene of the stories will the illustrations. The age and classicalness of the books are further encouraged by them looking like they are hardback, leather bound or fabric.

Figure 9

Figure 10                                                              Figure 11

The use of more than two colours has been avoided in these book covers. The bright pink in figure 11 is distasteful though, to harsh and bright, maybe this is just a factor of the time period that it was made in though? The simplicity of the illustrations and limited palette of colours work well if they were being used as paper cut templates.

Figure 12                                                           Figure 13

Figure 14

Most of these books in my small selection I have shown here have a boarder on the print page. this is something I should be aware of when I go to make the cover. will I have a boarder? will it be an illustration, a paper cut image or a more photographic and digital piece of design? Figure 13 is appealing as the decorative elements on the page are acting like a landscape for the figures in the illustration to actually stand on where as in covers such as that in figure 12 are just using relevant shapes and patterns to fill in the negative empty spaces.


Research on Relevant Imagery:

By this point I have now decided to focus on the book cover for The Snow Queen story, for this I brainstormed scenes and images

Figure 15

Figure 15 shows a selection of images chosen to find example of how other interpret the ice queen, most of which use blue, icy and cold colour palettes. Some examples I found were more illustrative, others more photographic and digital or childish with a naïve style about the image (such as the top right image on the top row)

Figure 16                                                          Figure 17

A queen live in an a castle, a castle and prince feature in the story too. Understanding different versions of a castle were needed. A castle for the Ice Queen needed to be regal, in a mountainous range or in a winter forest with ice and snow. Figure 16 fits this aesthetics the most, figure 17 is achieve by having lights behind the image that has been made up of layers. 

Figure 18

Figure 19                                                                             Figure 20

All of these castles (figures 16-20) are made of paper, although figure 20 might be questionable it gives the same look as if it had been with the lack of colour use and choice of silhouettes. Paper-cutting is one of the techniques and processes that I work well with (despite often struggling to keep up momentum with producing the final cuts dues to a hand injury) and I think the lack of colours used in this process will enhance the feeling of cold and unfeeling when referring to the snow queen that is in the story.

Figure 21                                                  Figure 22                                               Figure 23

 Figures 21-23 were of a broken glass windscreen. I didn't have any known sheets of ice that I could smash up to examine how the ice breaks but as the Snow Queen story features a mirror looking at glass seemed like a fair alternative. Figure 21 features a section that looks like an initial impact as it has triangular points leading outwards to more random breaks in the glass.
Observation: chunky, sharp, angular, fit together even if missing pieces.