Penguin Student Design Award 2019 Competition Brief - Initial Ideas

- 'Don't judge a book by its cover' can be applied to people. Don't judge a person by their appearance. The book design could be purposefully ugly/unappealing, but reveal a slither of something beautiful underneath the surface. A page tearing away, something unfolding, burning through etc.
- A drawing of August, but not including his facial features, instead having a beautiful and colourful array of patterns/colours for his face/body silhouette. Similar concept to the one above, where the appearance does not matter, but what's inside matters.
- Simple illustrations of the main characters, or various objects from the book.
- A painting of a duck, as August choose to represent himself in art class. This could be very effective, as the reader would only learn the meaning of the cover when they got to the end.
- School class/desk setting. Lots of children, but august stands out with a bright glow/aura. None of the children's faces are drawn, because their appearance does not matter.
- Illustrations of all the costumes/ways August liked to hide his face. Ending with one where he has cut his hair and is wearing a suit, proud and confident in who he is. Represents his journey.
- A scene of Augusts' bedroom. All the things he loves: star wars, his dog, toys etc. Make the audience intrigued by the person/kid whose room it is.
- Typographical cover, all the words/phrases that have been spoken to August, both mean and kind. And only the kind ones are highlighted/stand out.

I began to sketch out some of the concept ideas I had. In doing this I was able to visually make sense of the ideas better, as well as make initial explorations in how I would communicate. Sketching out initial ideas always helps me to edit down my initial ideas, and reveals to me which ideas would be stronger visually.

After sketching out some initial ideas, I decided to take four that I felt were the strongest and to quickly mock them up digitally. By mocking them up, it helped me to further edit down which ideas are stronger than others. As well as to explore initially how the ideas could be executed. 

Idea 1: A school classroom desk with objects that relate to it, and the information for the cover integrated into the scene.

Idea 2: A portrait of August, with his face replaced with beautiful and colourful patterns to represent that the outside appearance does not matter, but rather what is inside.

Idea 3: An illustration of a duck, same as what August drew in art class as a portrait of himself. A visually engaging but subtle connection to the story.

Idea 4: A typographic book cover that has all the themes within the book stated on the cover, representing the positivity within the story.

After some peer feedback, I decided to further explore the 1st idea, a classroom desks scene. When explaining what the book was about, peer feedback noted that the fact that August was starting school seemed to be  one of the key events within the book. I agreed with this, because within the book a lot of the story and it's themes/messages rely on the location and experiences of going to school. Therefore, by working with the 1st idea and the concept of a school desk, the cover would become a strong representation of the book and it's story. 

I first explored using realistic vectors of the objects that would sit on a school desk, however I found that this did not look very appealing for a younger audiences, as well as did not feel balanced within the composition. For the background I though a stereotypical wooden desk pattern would work well to communicate and set the scene of a classroom desk. I wanted all components of the design to fit into the scene, therefore for the typography I choose a scratched typeface, one that is reminiscent of when words are scratched into a classroom desk.

To make the objects within my classroom desk composition be more visually appealing to the younger audience, I decided to create simple vector illustrations of those objects. I used realistic photography pf those objects as reference, as I wanted the illustrations to also be realistic and clear enough, so that the younger audience would easily be able to identify what each object is. I used bright colours to colour the objects so that the book cover could have some pops of colour and be more eye-catching for the audience.

I swapped out the photo image trace vectors and applied my simple illustrations of the desk objects instead. This instantly made the composition of the design feel more balanced, and visually more appealing for the younger audience. The relationship between the background classroom desk texture and the object illustrations became more cohesive, however, now the scratched typeface seemed to be out place and di not fit naturally into the design. To continue my development, I wanted to explore different ways that I could present the text/copy.