'The Outsiders' book cover illustration

This competition appealed to me as it is for creating a book cover for a children's book. I feel that this is something that I would enjoy doing if pursued as a career, so this would be a good competition for me to do for this module. I would like my design to be a successful piece for my portfolio regardless of winning or not.

1st Prize

The winner of the Puffin Children’s Prize will be invited to spend four weeks at Puffin in the design studio on a work placement, working with Puffin Art Director Anna Billson on live briefs. The winner will also receive a cash prize of £1,000.

2nd Prize

The winner of the 2nd Prize will receive a £350 cash prize.

3rd Prize

The winner of the 3rd Prize will receive a £250 cash prize.

This information I gathered from the competition website and the brief. It is to design a cover for the book 'The outsiders' By S.E. Hinton

What the judges are looking for:

We are looking for a striking cover design that is well executed, has an imaginative concept and clearly places the book for its market of both teenagers, to pick up and buy for themselves, and adults to buy for them. While all elements of the jacket need to work together as a cohesive whole, remember that the front cover needs to be able to work on its own and be eye-catching within a crowded bookshop setting as well as on screen at a reduced size for digital retailers.

The winning design will need to:

• have an imaginative concept and original interpretation of the brief
• be competently executed with strong use of typography
• appeal to the broadest possible audience for the book
• show a good understanding of the marketplace
• have a point of difference from the many other book covers it is competing against
• be able to sit on the shelves of a supermarket or ebook store as easily as it sits on those of more traditional bookshops

To research ideas for designs for this book cover illustration I first listened to the audiobook and then watched the 1983 film. 

I collected a few images of past book cover designs that designers have created so I can get a feel of what has already been considered and which images I believe to be successful.

Most of these designs have themes that directly relate to the culture/plot of the book. Such as the greaser lifestyle which is represented by combs and switchblades. Combs are not really mentioned much in the book, however, a blade has a direct reference to the storyline, so has more relevance to the book.

My favourite of these images is the paper skull (Above) as it references the age of the boys in the book by being lined paper found at school, as well as suggests the idea of death being a theme.

I want my design to have a similar effect of having more than one reference hidden within the design.

In the brief, it is specified that the judges are looking for a design that is original and would stand out on shelves and as thumbnail images for e-books. I can use these collected designs as a basis for what not to do, and generate my own ideas inspired by these themes and layouts.

I also gathered some screenshots of parts of the film that I found to be symbolic or had good visual factors to them. I did bear in mind that there are some scenes in the film not mentioned in the book and vice versa, so I was careful to only use scenes that I knew to be in both.

These images (Above) are where Johnny stabs a Soc with a switchblade, killing him and beginning the intense and exciting parts of the plot. I think the blood in the fountain is particularly good imagery.

These images are of where Ponyboy and Johnny run away to the church to hideout for a week when waiting for the character Dallas. The boys talk about how beautiful a sunrise is, having never seen one before. I think this is another example of good imagery or colour themes that I could use.

This scene is where they come back to the church to find it on fire, before they rush in to save some school children, another important scene for the book as it leaves Johnny paralysed, eventually killing him.

I found that these images of the gang fight were also quite significant and could be turned into artwork quite well and would reflect the themes of the book quite well.

The book starts with the line "When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home."

I made a little list of the imagery and ideas that stood out to me the most, and decided to do some sketches to see what ideas I would then generate.

I drew this sketch of how I imagined a classic 'greaser' to look, with the greased back, black hair and leather jacket. I like the style i created it in by drawing a rough design with a brush tool, then rubbing out any unnecessary lines or marks, giving more detail as well as making the image look like a lino print.

I also thought the church where the two boys hide out was an important scene and should be considered as something for my final design. Once again, I like how the style adds to the eeriness of the drawing.

The next object I drew that I felt was another intrinsic part to the story was the fountain the Johnny stabs someone at whilst defending Ponyboy. I think that it will appear to have another layer of interest if I colour it in and have the blood in it.

I also did some rough sketches of objects used throughout the book, however, knifes aren't original as lots of the other book I researched turned out to have knifes as a focal point in their design.

I also drew a comb, as they are symbolic of the gang culture from that time and is easily recognisable.

I copied the sketch of the church and drew a stylised background, including the sunrise/sunset that is mentioned in the book by the boys whilst at this location.I feel that it works well and is a design that is powerful and works well aesthetically. I took the colours of the orange from the screenshot I took from the film of the sunrise.

I went bcd to my design of the fountain and added blood in the water. The blood would be very watered down, so i wanted to steer clear of using just a dark, blood red as the colour, so i tried using this orangey pink. I feel it works well and has a good lot of symbolism and depth to it.

This was another idea i had for the book cover, possibly a hand wielding a blade, showing the moment right before Johnny stabs the Soc, the main turn in the plot.

I liked the idea of the church being the focal point of my book cover design and wanted to re draw it in the same style as before, only larger and with a bit more personality.

My idea is to have the church in the foreground, having a sunrise behind it, creating light to come from the windows and door beaming out towards the viewer. I want the light to also be ambiguous as to whether it is light coming from behind the building, or whether it is fire coming from within the building. As another major scene in the story is where the church is on fire and he boys go back inside to rescue some young children.

I wanted to leave smoke out foof the design, as that would signify that the light is intact the fire, I want it to purposefully be left open to interpretation. Maybe the reader will begin to understand the different layers of the ideas behind this design as they read further into the book.

For the beams of light I practiced what looks best on illustrator and found that shapes made transparent look nicest and quite interesting to look at. This also allows me to change the background colours at will without changing the variety of colours used in the light.

I coloured the image to be at night time, so that the light coming through could be seen as the sunrise coming up from behind the hill shining through the windows.

I then added light in the windows to improve the design, adding the likelihood of the light actually being from a fire inside the building. I also added a few layers of light behind the church as the light coming up over the hill, yet could also be fire and light on the other side of the building. I am happy with this design so far, and will now look into utilising the design for use on a book cover and in the template provided.

I then considered text and the typography I want to use for my book cover design. I thought about the book and storyline and decided that it is quite a dark and sad story,  but also appeals to teenagers. This meant I wanted to have a font that is scary but also very legible and correctly portrayed the type of book it is.

I am happy with these outcomes for the book title and author name. I think they represent the target audience of the book as well as maintain a legibility.

I then looked at the required information that has to go on the design. This includes the front text, spine text and a blurb. as well as any information that is already on the template as part of the image.

I began to position the image and typography on the template and chose a different background colour. I wanted to indicate more that the background is a sunrise. I took the colours as a colour grab from a screenshot from the film, in a scene where the boys are looking at a sunrise. I feel this works better than the dark blue background I had at first.

I then added the blurb text and looked at positioning and the best placement for the three sets of texts that had to sit there. I think that I organised them well. When considering my illustration more, I decided to change the windows and door to white, this was indicating more that there is potentially a light source inside the building.

Whilst experimenting, I changed the outline of the image to white to test if it would work well. Many reasons stopped me from keeping this, such as it clashing with the white already inside the building, and needing outlines on at least one side of each window, as well as it just doesn't look right.

My next step in altering this design was to change the ground to black. I feel that this works much better as it lowers the colour palette, making the design look much more professional in my opinion, using only black, white and shades of orange.

Whilst rearranging the blurb text, I found I had a lot of spare space on the back cover, and it is normally common practice to have an image or continued image on the back cover, so I looked over my designs and found the knife and comb, I placed them together to symbolise the culture of the gangs in the book. I think this works well as it is not too focal but also has meaning.

Another development in my design was where two of the beams of light crossed over made an extra bright area, just above the clock tower, but I changed this for realism and also for the sake of it being too intrusive to the design.

My next step was changing the colour of the background, I felt the orange was too bright, so I changed it to a more pastel orange. I feel this was successful and makes the design look better and more professional. I also added a bird in a place that I felt needed something to pull the image together. I think it looks good, but I will think about this further towards the end of the design.

This is my final edition for the submission. I feel that it has developed well and that I have faced the issues raised as I have built up the design. Some of the issues I faced were the light beams coming from the building, it was difficult to position them so that they would look realistic and natural. I wanted there to be a bit of visual dispute as to whether the light source is coming from behind the church or from inside it. This is because of the two scenes at the church that I wanted to illustrate in one image, giving ambiguity to the design and also to reveal the possibilities to the reader as they read on.I also decided to add an orange glow coming from inside the church, I feel that this adds to my desired effect and is successful.

Other last minute changes that I wanted to make include the floor being turned back into black. I feel that a smaller palette brings the design together more and I am more comfortable with this design than with the green. I am happy with the font that I created. I wanted it to appear creepy but not to appear that the book is a horror story. I feel I have achieved this and that it gives off the feel that I wanted.

My next step was the submission of the artwork, I gathered the information from the website and then need to apply the changes to the file to be able to send it.

This is my final design that I submitted.

Overall, I think this piece is a success and is useable in my portfolio. I believe that it shows a amount of skills, from lighting and atmosphere to variety of styles and layout.

I am pleased with my ideas for this design. I wanted it to be an ambiguous setting, as thought it could appear to be either a burning church, or a church sitting in front of a sunrise. I feel that i translated this idea well and that it is an even better design for those who are reading/have read the book and understand the setting and ideas behind the design. An issue that I found whilst making this design was that the light was difficult to position and that the beams were awkward to angle. However, I feel that from my last illustration involving the Ronin monster, that I have developed my skills in lighting and shadow, this helped greatly with this project.

If I were to change something, it might be the deal of the sky. Although it was a little bland and is flat colours, there is not much else that I wanted to add to it. I was debating with myself as to whether it would look good to have a sketchy effect, after trying, I feel that this may have been the better decision of the two, but still not completely pleased with it.