D&AD: "A Clockwork Orange" case study.
This project it's for the penguin cover design award, A competition that takes place every year for designers and illustrators who haven't got any experience in a paid role yet or haven't broken into the creative industry yet.
My proposal:
"For this project I will create a book cover for a "A Clockwork Orange" using digital illustration, specifically a combination of Adobe Illustrator and Indesign, to create a minimalist design that will also include a clever combination of key symbols relevant to the film that will represent it in an interesting light without revealing too much information about it, creating questions in the mind of viewer such as the relevance of such unusual elements combined.
Regarding the colour scheme I am aiming to go for something that will look clean and formal but also have a stand out quality to it: for the background I will use either a very pale grey or a combination of a pale grey and a dark grey as the way each other out really well, and I will use a bright yet intense orange incorporated into the illustration so it will stand out against the dull background.
I am going to aim for a minimalism style for the general design that will make the book look formal and serious but with an element of mystery and surprise which will come through via the illustration."
Therefore, after doing extensive research on the novel, along with reading the book and further looking into the key symbols of the film and the deeper meanings, I sketched out some of my initial ideas for the front cover of the book.
The next thing I did was to take the designs that I was the happiest with and using graphic pens, I experimented with creating a visual illustration on paper.
All of the designs that involved combining the oranges with a cog worked really well. I am very happy with the colour combinations too as I think they represent the idea of the book really well and stand out from a distance away which is also an important factor.
Next I selected a few that in general stood out to me and I think had more potential. I have taken these ideas and represented them digitally using Adobe illustrator.
Attached here are some of the sketches I made regarding the layout of two of the designs that I like enough to further develop, the ones including the eye and the ones including the orange and cog.
The following outcomes are the ones I believed were the strongest as they are simple yet interesting and I am happy with how the symbols have been merged together so seamlessly and the colours sit well with each other.
These are some sketches I did when brainstorming different layouts for the spine of the book, followed by the final version.
Finally, these are some sketches I did when brainstorming different layouts for the back of the book, followed by the final outcome.
Attached here are the two final designs I have created for this brief:
