503 - Penguin Book Cover - Crit & Finalisation

Crit feedback

As I am only allowed to submit one design for each book title, my first focus in the crit session was to find out from the group whether they agreed with my choice of the more illustratively styled cover. As it is a way more approachable, simplistic but sophisticated response everyone did agree on this, also putting it down to the fact it was more appropriate and engaging for a broader target audience; in comparison to the technical, slightly too busy for the eye grid response. I have found it can be appreciated by like minded design conscious creatives, however this isn't the only target audience the cover needs to appeal to. This cold, enticing scene featuring the tied-up figure would stand out on a shelf of book covers way more.
But there were some minor points which would help me to finalise the illustration and type-setting ready for my submission. The first is that the lines on the back of the chair do need smoothening out to avoid jagged edges in print; and also I haven't accounted for the shadow casted by the victims legs (what looks like just the chair legs) - so this needs adjusting to draw together the realism within the piece. 
Finally, I do need to make the type size for the blurb slightly smaller, just so it sits abit further away from the wall / floor divide.

Upon mocking up the covers into actual book concepts, it did occur to me that the divide between the grey and green walls was in a awkward place - with regards to the spine. I did feel like to fit better it needed to be moved to the left directly onto the crease between spine and cover to avoid the random appearing grey strip on the cover..



























Adjusted FINAL version..

I decided to quickly mockup the grid response - just to see how it would appear on a book, not just the spread. 
- It does not feel as busy once split onto the front/back covers - still not as appropriate as the illustration however.
- Can evaluate that if I were to re-visit and re-use this design I would experiment with centralising the grid on the back cover perhaps.