Visual Styles of Genre in a Book Shop

As part of my research I looked at existing visual styles of different genre's in book shops Eason's and The Works. It was interesting to see existing trends such as the fantasy genre books almost always containing a sword or a hooded figure this cemented the cliche's I had already found in existing book covers. I also noted almost every book cover has a type hierarchy this was most common in font size and style. 

Covers often also either had a main focus on typography or imagery however occasionally the aspects were combined. This research enabled me to gain further knowledge and inspiration to consider what composition would be most appropriate and unique against competitors for my book series. 

Gossip Girl PRADA Inspired Idea

Book Cover Objects

A Game of Thrones 

- Chess Pieces 

- Wine Bottle 

- Gold Jewellery 

- Dice

- A Candle 

- Origami 

- Maps 

- Scrabble 

- Lego 

- Jenga 
- Deck of Cards 

Pretty Little Liars 

- Lipstick

- Make Up

- Doll

- A Mobile Phone 

- Strings with letters attached 

- Letters with 'LIAR' letters in red - spell out all the girls names 

Gossip Girl

- Make Up

- Nail Varnish 

- Shoes

- Designer Labels ie. Prada 

- Tie and a Bow tie 

- Handbags

Cliche Features of Existing Book Covers

Through my research I wanted to establish stereotypical or cliche features in existing book cover designs and avoid these. This ensures my designs and outcomes are unique and interesting and meet the mandatory requirements set out in the brief.

Cliche features can include:
In fantasy - 
- Cover contains a sword 
- Hooded figure 
- Serif fonts 
Other Genres -
- Muted tones, High heels 
- Muted tones, jewellery
- Handwritten style font 
- Black and Red 
- Gothic Fonts 
- Sunrise and Sunset Landscape
- Puzzle Pieces
- Hands 
- Guns tanks or weapons 
- Blood 

These are just some of the common cliches I have noted and hope to avoid, in order for my design to be interesting I must ensure my design will work as a series for the other two books not following a cliche recognisable in existing covers. Cliches can work at times but do not enable a design to stand out against competitors. The unique aspect of a design can draw attention to a book and the saying "Don't judge a book by it's cover." we say it to declare how we don't judge but really we do. A book cover is still a first impression and is the main impression of a book as often the cover is what can encourage us to buy a book.



Consider the following points: 

-Does the cover link to pages inside?
-Is text is the main focus?
-Is uppercase text used mostly?
-Is a simple sans serif fonts used?
-Are text styles are easily legible and readable?
-Do text styles have curved edges
- Are text styles are thicker to make them easier to read/notice?

Adobe Illustrator Book Inspired Illustrations

Using Adobe Illustrator I was able to create illustrations and drawings based on my three chosen books. This allowed me to generate some interesting pattern, shape, textures and possible attributes to my cover designs. Some of the illustrations were drawn and inspired from each book TV adaptation theme song. The theme music inspired more pattern related drawings because it is actually very difficult to illustrate the music and the drawings were done relatively quickly similarly to the length of the theme intro.

A Game of Thrones Intro Created Using Everyday Items

https://nerdist.com/game-of-thrones-intro-with-household-items: 22/12/17

For further research to inspire a collection of objects based on one of my chosen books 'A Game of Thrones.' This research proved helpful and useful as inspiration. Blake Rodgers posted on July 2015 a compilation of everyday objects re-creating the Game of Thrones TV Series Intro. The objects used included a belt, monopoly, Jenga, Lego, Origami, Scrabble and Paper etc. This inspired my idea generation of relatable objects. Using some objects from this research as a starting point for my book cover designs. I want to include a range of specific photography following a set rule across the series of books. The photography will be used to capture the selected relatable objects. 

'A Game of Thrones' objects to photograph 

- Chess Pieces 

- Wine Bottle 

- Gold Jewellery 

- Dice

- A Candle 

- Origami 

- Maps 

- Scrabble 

- Lego 

- Jenga 
- Deck of Cards 

Graphics created using Microsoft Excel

For further development these graphics show further experiments in another text editing programme, Microsoft Excel. The programme works by containing cells with different values. To create graphics each cell was block filled with colour to create a shape. Although this programme made it difficult to form curves and circles by this method of imagery slightly hindering the graphics aesthetics. Some graphics were more successful than others. This method of creating graphics helped to influence further idea generation. 

The 'Iron' Throne 

More wine m'lord 

A Game of Thrones 

Valyrian Steel Sword 

Valyrian Steel Shield 

Secrets  

xoxo

Unknown - Gossip Girl

5 Liars 

Pretty 

Disguise 

Visual Poetry Inspired by ASCII Art

Using the text programme Microsoft Word it was difficult and time consuming to create imagery using type in this programme. It was difficult to align type so each text was contained in its own text box to make the alignment more successful as it was easier to arrange. Although it was extremely difficult and some aspects of each image are not perfectly aligned due to the programme being purely used for text editing the finished outcomes worked well, some perhaps worked better than others. 

Pretty Little Liars Inspired Imagery

Gossip Girl Inspired Imagery

A Game of Thrones Inspired Imagery