503 - Penguin Book Cover - Finals & Submission

Upon finalising my cover design I was ready to submit via the Penguin website - but this involved ensuring my submission fit the requirements stated in the initial brief:

"All entries must be submitted digitally via the submissions site. Entries submitted in any other way, including by email or hard-copy, will not be accepted.

Entries must supplied in the following format:
- PDF
- 300dpi
- CMYK
- 5mm bleed
- Ideally colour managed to ISO Coated 39 or ISO Uncoated 29 (optional)
- Trim and crop marks to be included
- Maximum file size 5 MB

Please include the front cover only on the first page of your PDF and a full cover spread (front, spine and back cover) on the second page of your PDF.

Please use the design template and cover copy supplied on the main competition pages."

Final Mockups:

Evaluation:

Overall, I am over the moon with my development within this project and I feel as if I have completely met my initial aims/objectives that I stated at the beginning. I have completely restored my skills in Illustrator and feel so much more confident, which has directly fed into other modules and projects I have been working towards alongside this one. In turn, enhancing my eye for illustration and how I can incorporate light and shadows into a vectorised approach resulting in a sophisticated and more considered response to the brief.

I feel as if I could have just kept working and working away at various responses for this brief, and maybe I could have produced more if it wasn’t for time restrictions for other projects, but I do feel as though I have showed a considered design process of how I have got to my final design.

I considered both illustration and typographical elements of what makes a good cover, and think my restricted colour palette has helped me to really reflect the more cold, enticing qualities of the novel to the desired audience. My cover does make it more appropriate and appealing to a wider audience, doing this through its ambiguity and easy to follow cover layout.

I thoroughly enjoyed producing work for this project and enjoyed being given the entire context of a book, and then being left to create my own response based on the research and background/experience I have of the novel from at a personal level. I would be open to doing designing book covers again in the future!